BHEL Hyderabad's staff kills self due to ‘workplace harassment’
HYDERABAD: Alleged harassment by colleagues and seniors at work forced an employee of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited’s (BHEL) Hyderabad unit to end her life. The victim, Neha Chouksey, 33, allegedly hanged herself in her house, the police said. She left a suicide note, in which she detailed how she was harassed by her superior officer and her colleagues.
Neha, who hailed from West Bengal, lived in Miyapur with her husband Sunil Khandelwal, a techie who works for an MNC. On Thursday morning, when he woke up and went to relieve himself, Neha locked herself in the room and killed herself.
Sunil knocked repeatedly, asking Neha to open the door, but there was no response. Worried, he alerted his mother and brother, who in turn alerted the apartment guards. They broke in and found Neha hanging from the ceiling fan. The police rushed to the spot and shifted the body for a post-mortem examination.
Sunil told the police that Neha was being harassed mentally and physically by her colleagues, and she had said her phone was being tapped and hacked by them. He further said that those who harassed Neha included the DGM of BHEL, Kishore Arther Kumar, of Unit E6, and her colleagues - deputy managers Trithabasi Swain, Mohanlal Soni, S Sumalatha, Gopiram Korra and Almi Nithin, senior officers Sitaram D and Charan Raj, and the whole team of executive officers, whom she claimed had hacked her mobile phone.
Inquiries revealed that Neha joined the Hyderabad office in June 2019, before which she was working in Bhopal. As she had faced similar harassment there, she opted for a transfer. Her colleagues in Bhopal allegedly spread malicious information against her in Hyderabad as well. Based on Sunil’s complaint, the Miyapur police registered a case of abetment to suicide against the DGM and others.