Youth Congress Chief Appears Before Assam Cops In Sexual Harassment Case

Youth Congress president Srinivas BV on Monday appeared before the police in Guwahati for questioning into a sexual and mental harassment case filed by a former party colleague.

He reached the Panbazar Women police station at 11 am after landing at the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport earlier in the day.

Srinivas was accompanied by his lawyer and Assam Congress leaders, including MLAs Rakibul Hussain and Rekibuddin Ahmed.

After over an hour at the police station, he left for the office of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the city.

While coming out of the office an hour later, he told the reporters, "The matter is before the court."

The CID had also issued a separate notice to the Youth Congress chief in the same case.

A Congress leader, now expelled, had alleged that Srinivas was "'persistently harassing and torturing her for the last six months by making sexist comments, using swear words and also threatening her of dire consequences if she keeps complaining against him to the senior party office bearers."

She also mentioned in the complaint that during the party's recent plenary session at Raipur, the accused had physically heckled her and threatened of ruining her career if she complained against him.

She had made the allegations in a series of tweets on April 18.

After the FIR was registered last month, a five-member team of Guwahati Police went to Bengaluru and pasted a notice at his residence, directing him to appear at the Dispur police station by May 2.

The Congress issued a show cause notice to the woman and later expelled her from the primary membership of the party for six years for anti-party activities.

The accused had also served a legal notice on the woman, demanding an apology, failing which he threatened to initiate legal proceedings.

He had approached the Gauhati High Court for anticipatory bail and on being rejected, he had appealed for it before the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court then granted him interim protection from arrest in the case and directed him to cooperate in the investigation and appear before the police in Guwahati on Monday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)