AIFF harassment case: Woman employee accuses senior officials of leaking personal details

Tribune News Service

Vinayak Padmadeo

New Delhi, May 8

A woman employee who had filed a sexual harassment complaint against a colleague working for the All India Football Federation (AIFF) has alleged that she is being targeted again.

The senior functionary has written a letter to the football body’s Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) detailing all that has been done to tarnish her image after confidential details, including her resume and offer letter, were leaked to a media website.

In a complaint filed on Tuesday, the employee alleged that three influential staffers — name and rank not disclosed to hide the identity of the complainant — are involved in leaking her personal details to the website. On Wednesday, she filed a complaint with the police near her residence and is also likely to file another in Dwarka, where the AIFF house is located.

In February, she had complained that a male employee, who is said to be close to the AIFF bosses, touched her inappropriately and despite her verbal complaints no action was taken against him. In fact, the ICC met in March to deal with the complaint. However, no action was taken after the victim did not file an official complaint on assurances that she would be safeguarded.

However, the latest incident has once again shown how little is being done to safeguard women in workplaces.

The video about the confidential details was released on May 4 and the complainant alleges that despite several attempts by her to get the AIFF secretariat — now being run by acting secretary general Satyanarayan Muthyalu — to launch an internal enquiry, nothing has been done so far.

“…Despite of all this, the ASG (acting secretary general) has not called any enquiry, me being a women employee of AIFF being harassed continuously. I requested the ASG today to take action and get my video deleted by today evening, no action has been taken by him so far. He is giving me false hopes that we will do something, will talk to the advocate etc. I do not believe that, after such breach of confidentiality and disrespect of a woman at workplace and all across the social media demands such a long time and decision making to file a case or talk to a lawyer,” the woman employee wrote in her complaint.

However, Satyanarayan told The Tribune that they have lodged a complaint in this matter. “We filed a complaint with the cyber cell on Tuesday as a lot of confidential details have been leaked out, which is a serious breach of privacy,” he said.

In the complaint, the employee pointed out reasons why the AIFF is unsafe for women. “…We feel unsafe in such an organisation, where personal and confidential data can be released, anything can happen, including leaking of any private pictures from washrooms, where all the male cleaning staff is cleaning the women washrooms, being recently hired by admin dept. with no female cleaner staff. I also feel unsafe and threatened outside the office by these people for whatever has been happening. I am being targeted internally and being harassed continuously being a woman employee,” she wrote.

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