NEW DELHI, May 26: A 24-year-old employee with the Hotel Kanishka, a four-star hotel run by the Indian Tourism Development Corporation, has lodged a complaint with the management saying that she was raped by two fellow employees over a period of two years and sexually harassed by seven others.Jawahar Gadihoke, general manager of the hotel, confirmed that one of the employees named in the complaint has been suspended. ``We have an inquiry going on and have suspended one person already, we have also passed on her complaint to the police. We'll take appropriate action once we get the inquiry report,'' he said.The complainant was hired by the hotel as a casual employee in August 1996. Her first assignment, as a restaurant hostess, was at the hotel's coffee shop. Her ordeal began soon. ``I was forced to wash and lift dirty utensils, some employees even abused me and passed filthy remarks, I complained to the captain, but he told me that I will have to do whatever I am asked to,'' she says in her complaint to the hotel management.In October, 1996, she says, a fellow employee tried to molest her. ``I complained to the general manager on October 30, 1996 but no action was taken against him,'' her complaint says. The GM of the hotel refused to comment on this issue.In January 1997, she was transferred to the Mandarin restaurant in the hotel, but here too, she says, she faced harassment. Her complaint says that two employees at the restaurant used to tease her and one of them took her to the other's house on some pretext and both raped her. She says they threatened her and asked her not to disclose the incident to anyone. ``I kept quiet because I am a tribal girl (from the North-East), staying alone in Delhi with no relatives or any financial help.I also knew that management is not going to help me out, as they had taken no action on my earlier complaint,'' her complaint adds. She says the two blackmailed her and forced her to continue sexual relations with them.Her complaint says that one of them promised her that he would marry her. She says she got pregnant and told him about it so he took her to a hospital for abortion. However, the harassment did not end there. She says he raped her in the lady's cloak room of the hotel.After her complaint to the general manager on May 14, the wife of the man who allegedly raped her came to her and ``threatened her.''On May 14, when she met the inquiry committee set up by the management, she ``withdrew'' the complaint. One of the members of the committee asked her not to do so. And on May 21, she filed a fresh complaint to the general manager.In this she said: ``These workers wanted to use me as a sex doll.I request you to kindly lodge a police complaint and arrange a safer place for me to stay.'' A copy of the complaint was sent to the D.G. Tourism, Ashok Pradhan, and Additional Commissioner of Police, B.S. Brar.
