Managing director of a business solutions firm sexually assaults 21-year-old employee.

 A month ago, Pallavi (name changed), who is said to be a resident of Srigandhakaval, had  joined her first job as an accountant at SSV Business Solutions in Srigandhakaval. According to the complaint registered by her with the Annapoorneshwari Nagar police, the assault took place on November 13 at around 3.30 PM, when she was alone in the office with the accused, Siddagangaiah. .

He called her into his chamber to look for some files. When they were both working on it, he began to misbehave with her. “He commented on my appearance, asked me why I dress the way I do and tried to get intimate,” Pallavi had told the police. She said that the man held her close and had been touching her inappropriately. “I managed to push him away and warned him that I’d tell the other employees,” she added. A family friend of hers told a source that the man had offered to buy her slippers and clothes if she satisfied his needs.

Pallavi informed her parents about this incident. “We went to the office the next day and confronted the man. He said that Pallavi was making a false allegation because he had scolded her over an accounting error. We insisted on checking the CCTV footage. We found that he had indeed assaulted Pallavi,” said the family friend.

His deed had been exposed, Siddagangaiah fell on the feet of Pallavi’s parent, begging them not to tell anyone and said that it was a mistake. “However, when we asked him to apologise on camera, he refused,” the friend added. The family called the police control room and Hoysala police had come and taken the accused away to Annapoorneshwari Nagar police station. 

An investigating officer said that, “Siddagangaiah offered money as compensation to the woman. The woman refused it and filed a complaint. We booked him for assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty, sexual harassment, wrongful restraint, criminal intimidation and word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman and arrested him.”