Hyderabad: Two-and-a-half months ago the e-retail chain Flipkart was rattled by an incident in Hyderabad. A working professional had decided to take the company to task after their customer service failed to help her with a pressing issue the alleged rape attempt on her maid by a delivery person of the company.
Mili Srivastava is still fighting for justice against the e-retail giant and the case has just gotten worse. The problem? It’s Flipkart’s “bad luck” attitude, she says.
“I wish I had taken the Uber case route. I regret ever considering having discussions with them,” says the working professional, who is now suing Flipkart for defamation.
“In their last response to me, they stated that they aren’t responsible for the behaviour of an individual, a contract worker. They even had the audacity to tell me that they can’t assure that the incident will not be repeated again.
And their idea of making a few changes in their system to handle these cases better is to add another option in their call centre menu that tackles these human problems,” says Mili, who continues to take on Flipkart on social media.
“My tagline is Show up, own up and pay up. It’s high time companies in India start paying for damages. What I do with the money is none of their business,” says Mili, who was even forced to change her number after she apparently received several threat calls since the time she reported the case to the police.
The calls, however, could not be traced as all of them were made from coin booths. “I think the nation has had enough of this. Flipkart has been extremely insensitive about the whole issue. It’s not just a one off incident, it’s about a sexual assault on a woman in a private home and that cannot be taken lightly.
My maid refused to go out for two months after the incident because the neighbourhood would make her feel conscious of what had happened to her. I do not think the panels of men in companies understand the trauma of a victim,” says Mili.
Flipkart's defence
Meanwhile a senior spokesperson of Flipkart insisted that all possible action from their end was taken.
“We want to first clarify that it is not a Flipkart delivery boy, but an e-Kart delivery boy. The first thing we did was to put a feedback system in place to ensure that these cases by-pass all hierarchy and are directed to the seniors,” the spokesperson said.
“Further, our objective was to solve this case together through communication. But the point of conflict came in due to the monetary compensation demanded by Mili. We were ready to give the maid an education fund or sponsor her vocational training. But Mili wasn’t happy with that proposition.”
“One more thing we want to clarify is that e-Kart has all the background checks in place. From criminal background verifications, address and ID verification in local jurisdictions. Where we fail is at the lack of centralised records, which is not in place in India yet.”
"As to the charges of insensitivity of dealing with gender issues based on having an all-male panel, it is a lesson learned. To tackle this very perception of insensitivity, we followed up by sending over a senior lady executive to Mili's residence to speak to her and the victim. And defamation is just a misinterpretation on Mili's part."