Young IAS officer Riju Bafna who filed a sexual harassment case says, "Idiots are lined up at every step"

Bafna's Facebook Photo

Riju Bafna, a young IAS officer of 2014 batch who had filed a sexual harassment case against a member of Madhya Pradesh Human Rights Commission for sending her “indecent messages”, narrated on Monday her unpleasant experience while pursuing the case. “Idiots are lined up at every step and people are highly insensitive towards our sufferings,” she said in a Facebook post that went viral on Monday. The officer, however, edited one line in her post where she said…
"I can only pray that no woman is born in this country." In her second piece of writing in the social media site, she wrote: “In my previous post, there was a line about women not being born in the country. I wrote that line in the spur of moment and I regret blaming the country for the fault of individuals. Indeed, I had edited the fb post later. However, the entire experience made me realize how insensitive the criminal justice system is towards the sensitive matters of sexual crimes,” says Bafna who originally hails from Delhi. A post-graduate from Delhi School of Economics, she was first allotted Chhattisgarh cadre but got shifted to Madhya Pradesh on the grounds of marriage to her batch-mate Abhi Prasad of Madhya Prasad cadre. The 27-year-old IAS officer was posted in Durg in Chhattisgarh earlier this year before getting a posting in MP.
As she described the sequence of events, the Aayogmitra of MP Human Rights Commission sent her “indecent messages” last week for which she filed an FIR against him. The man was removed from his job, for which she gave full credit to “the swift action” by her collector Bharat Yadav, a 2008 batch IAS.
But she faced problems as she recorded her statement. She found it uncomfortable to give her statement in front of a number of people including advocates. She demanded privacy. But as the IAS officer wrote in her post, one advocate standing there began shouting at her, saying "how dare you suggest me to leave, I am an advocate here and you might be an officer in your office but not in the Court". The advocate finally left the place.
“Such is the state of affairs for women in this country. When I said to Judicial Magistrate that he should be careful of presence of other people when a woman is giving statement under sexual harassment case, he said that you are young and that’s why demanding such things,” Bafna wrote in her post.
Reacting to her post, one Lakshmi Krishnaswamy wrote in her Facebook page: “And imagine, you are an IAS officer... already a woman with some power. Most women are not.” Yes, it sums up where the nation stands today.