CPM doubted integrity of complainant, protected P K Sasi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPM’s internal probe report on alleged sexual misconduct by Shoranur MLA P K Sasi – accessed by STOI – has listed 10 reasons doubting the veracity of the complaint. It also appears to have been prejudiced against the complainant, a woman DYFI leader.

The report was first submitted to the CPM state committee on November 26, which suspended Sasi from the primary membership of the party for six months, and may have been the subject of discussions at the party’s ongoing two-day central committee meeting in Delhi on Saturday and Sunday.

The probe panel – authored by A K Balan, who is also the state’s law minister and P K Sreemathy, a member of Parliament and one of the senior-most women leaders of the party in Kerala – apparently concluded that there wasn’t any improper behaviour from Sasi as alleged by the DYFI leader, but contradicted itself by quoting the transcript of a telephone conversation in which Sasi asks her, “What is the danger that we touched each other when I feel respect to you?” and adds, “I have a peculiar affection towards you”.

Sources said the first complaint of the woman leader was about improper touching and sexual advances by Sasi at the CPM area committee office Mannarkad in December, 2017.

TIMES VIEW

The CPM never misses an opportunity to flaunt its so-called progressive credentials, but its internal report on P K Sasi’s alleged sexual misconduct exposes the party’s patriarchal and sexist mindset. To begin with, the probe panel appears to have spent a disproportionate amount of time and energy in establishing ‘evidence’ againstthe survivor / victim rather than on the accused. It also lays undue stress on technicality, like the time lapse before the complaint, when it is accepted practice in all such cases to consider delay as quite normal under the circumstances. Another clue to how parochial the CPM still is on such matters is the report’s description of Sasi’s offensive phone conversations as ‘loose talk’; by the same token, by pointing out that the complainant ‘socialises with all’, the report might as well have branded her a ‘loose woman’! In its hurry to exonerate Sasi, the CPM should have at least dredged up more convincing reasons.


Party committee ignored POSH Act

The POSH Act of 2013 clearly defines that any unwelcome advances or unwanted touching amount to sexual harassment. The probe panel has ignored this and arbitrarily concluded that there was no chance for the alleged assault to have taken place in the party office as there had been several visitors at the time of the said assault and Sasi hadn’t closed the door of his room.

“It may be noted that there is no eye witness to the incident alleged to have taken place in the open office room which has a common passage to two other rooms where area secretary and office secretary sits”, the report noted, even though the woman stood by her statement and didn’t change it at any point. Other reasons cited by the report are that the woman complained only after eight months, that she happily engaged in her duty as women volunteer captain during the Palakkad district conference even after the alleged incident, that she interacted with Sasi again and willingly posed for a group photo session after the conference, etc... The probe report also states that the complainant is a woman “who socialises with all”. The inquiry commission examined 22 witnesses and 14 documents.

The commission’s attempts to dismiss the version of the complainant in its entirety couldn’t succeed as the complainant submitted audio recording of four conversations she had with Sasi after the alleged assault.

Sasi’s explanation for ‘loose talking’ to a woman comrade was found improper by the commission which at the same time also recorded Sasi’s and some other leaders’ allegations that there has been a conspiracy behind the filing of sexual harassment complaint.