Yangchen C Rinzin

Investigations into the sexual harassment case at the Bhutan Power Corporation is almost complete and police are awaiting the victim’s medical report from health officials to ascertain the emotional and mental trauma the victim went through.

“The report is an important evidence,” a police source said. “We’ll complete the investigation report once we get the medical report.”

The source said that all circumstantial evidence against the accused was strong.

A female staff of BPC filed a complaint to the management against one of the directors for behaving inappropriately and harassing her around 2am on September 15.

The incident occurred when the alleged victim and another female colleague were attending to their night shift duty at the company’s customer care office.

The victim formally filed a written complaint on September 21.

BPC management forwarded the case to police on October 1 based on the strong prima facie evidence submitted by the Corporation’s inquiry committee on September 29.

The accused director was suspended since September 24. 

Kuensel learnt that four other female employees from the corporation came forward to share similar incidents of harassment by the same director. The cases, the women claimed, were negotiated within the management.

A police source said that their investigation has also ruled out any personal grudge between the accused director and victims.

However, Kuensel learnt that the accused has refuted all the allegations and also denied that he was drunk at the time when he visited the customer care office on September 15.

“It’s important to establish the evidence which is why we take time to investigate,” a police official said. “But people must understand that sexual harassment is criminal in nature. People must report to police at the earliest to help police establish evidence.”

The police official added that even in this case, the case was reported late to the police and with such a practice, there was a high chance of evidence being tampered with.

Meanwhile, police have also completed the investigation of the alleged sexual harassment case against the supervisor of the Royal Tutorial Project. “We will forward this case to court any time soon. Investigation report is ready.”

Edited by Jigme Wangchuk