Dalit corporate employee suicide: Two of three accused senior employees of apparel firm get anticipatory bail

The anticipatory bail plea of a third company official, Nitish Kumar, a top retail operations executive at the private firm, was adjourned for further hearing at the end of the week. Nitish Kumar was reportedly placed under arrest after Raj’s death.

Raj, a graduate in design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, who worked at Lifestyle International as a visual merchandiser, died by suicide on June 4. Ramavadh said his son had been working for 10 years in Bengaluru. While Malathy was his reporting manager, Kumar Suraj and Nitish Kumar were the senior executives of the firm.

Ahead of his death, he put out a video statement saying he had been subjected to caste abuse and discrimination at his work place by his managers and that efforts to escalate the issue to senior officials yielded no response.

“They are ready to throw money as much as possible to hide the harassment but not correct or define the system,” Raj said in his statement accusing seniors at his workplace of caste abuse.

A day ahead of his death, Raj had filed a police complaint with the Marathahalli police in Bengaluru against the three workplace executives – Nitish Kumar, Kumar Suraj and Malathy – accusing them of atrocities as defined by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989. He alleged that he had been subjected to caste abuse at the workplace.

The police had registered a case under Sections 3 (1) (r) (intentionally insulting or intimidating with intent to humiliate members of SC/ST in any place) and 3(1)(s) (abuses any member of SC/ST by caste name in any place).

In his police complaint on June 4, Ramavadh said, “The work feedback that was being provided by my son was being intentionally rejected by his seniors and as a result he wrote to the senior management but his complaints were ignored. He used to tell me about these things. A few months ago his managers also began abusing him on the basis of his caste. This was also reported to higher officials but no action was taken and my son was hurt mentally.”

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