Suspension of sexual assault IAS official: Nagaland student’s body

Representative image. |Photo source: AFP

Guwahati: The NAGA Student Federation (NSF) requires the state government not to hold IAS officials accused of sexual assault as any office of responsibility until the investigation is completed and the final report is released.

The Nagaland government released the Nagaland joint secretary of the Bureau of Programme and Transformation and Industrial Development on April 4 after state police submitted the first information report suspected of sexual assault on several women.

FIR follows a complaint against IAS officials forwarded by the Nagaland State Women’s Commission. The complaint is based on the verbal statements of the alleged victim.

NSF Vice President Mteisuding and General Secretary Chumben Khuvung in a letter to the state’s chief secretary, Mr Wilfred’s “continue appointment” despite his authority being filed with serious sexual harassment charges against him by female employees.

They said IAS officials who allow “repeated displays” a pattern of misconduct “continue to be in a position where they can further abuse their power.”

The NSF warned individuals and entities not to try to cover up officials or any attempts to influence the findings, saying there was no pause for Mr. Wilfred to “send dangerous messages to survivors of workplace harassment and dangerous messages protected by the entire agency.

IAS officials earlier said the allegations against him were “counterfactual.”

He told reporters in the state’s capital Kohima that he was a victim of the ongoing campaign of some senior officials who forged complaints to threaten his life and career.

Mr Wilfred said he was first framed in 2016, allegedly trying to overthrow the government at the time. He claimed that his 2021 POCSO case against him in the Norclark area was also a “resolved” after discovering a network of trafficking in children and ordering all villages to maintain registries to check for crimes.

“It took two years for the first complaint to be proved wrong. I don’t know how long this (sexual assault) will take,” he said, asserting that he would do his best to make sure the truth prevailed.