Video from Gurgaon’s ‘Billionaire Row’ shows domestic help being abused

Police officers involved in the investigation said Sachdeva had been released on station bail on Monday.

The preliminary investigation has revealed that the woman who is seen being assaulted in the purported video was Sachdeva’s domestic help, who had left the job on July 27, ASI Kumar said.

“The accused woman had assaulted the domestic help following an argument regarding work. Further action in the case will be taken as per rules. The case is under investigation,” the spokesperson said.

The purported video, which is about two minutes long and appears to have been shot from an adjoining apartment, shows a young woman being dragged, punched, and pulled by the hair by another woman in what appears to be a kitchen.

“She (the older woman) has slapped her. If I was in her (the help’s) place I would have retaliated,” a female voice is heard saying in Nepali in the video.

At the end of the video, the younger woman is seen standing alone, looking distressed. The voice says in Nepali, “Now lady, we have taken this video. You will face the consequences.”

The Camellias, along with the Aralias and the Magnolias, is among the most high-end residential properties in Delhi-NCR, and is home to several high-profile residents. A condo in the Camellias could cost upwards of Rs 75-80 crore.

Calls made by The Indian Express to the husband of the woman went unanswered. A member of the family said they did not want to comment. Speaking on behalf of the family, advocate Vaibhav Suri told The Indian Express that a day after the purported incident, the woman help, who was seen being allegedly assaulted in the video, had filed a “representation” with the Gurgaon Cyber Cell about the video being circulated “illegally” on WhatsApp.

“It (the ‘representation’) is not an FIR but a handwritten complaint, and my client (Sachdeva) has endorsed it. We have said the circulation of the video is illegal and that it should be removed from WhatsApp chats,” Suri said.

In the two-page handwritten complaint, which has been accessed by The Indian Express, the woman help has alleged that an unknown person had circulated the video, and asked for it to be removed from social media. She has said that she did not want legal action, and “My face should not appear anywhere like this.”

The help has pledged her support to the Sachdeva  family, and said that if a third party were to file a case, “I will come to give my statement to end the complaint.”

A team from the Durga Shakti PCR (police control room wing for crimes against women), after being urged by the Gurgaon One Stop Centre, a Haryana government initiative intended to help women affected by violence in private and public spaces, visited the 27th floor residence of the Sachdeva family on Sunday.

Gurgaon One Stop Centre in-charge Pinky Malik told The Indian Express that since the woman help had said she did not want to pursue the matter, the case would have been closed “naturally”. However, now that police had begun investigating, things can proceed, she said.

A second video seen by The Indian Express has captured the PCR team’s intervention at the apartment’s front door, where a man, who Malik said was Sachdeva’s husband Neeraj Sachdeva, a prominent liquor merchant, is heard speaking to the officers.

“He matter-of-factly informed the authorities that his wife had become angry and slapped the worker. Further, he stated that the domestic worker had already left the residence approximately fifteen days prior and that the family had previously submitted her written clarification to the local police station to preemptively halt any legal proceedings,” Malik said.

“Our aim was to rescue her (the help), but we got to know she had left. The [Durga Shakti PCR] team went around 3 pm on Sunday,” Malik told The Indian Express.