'Pressured Women To Join Them In Hotels': Big Claim In TCS 'Conversion' Case

A former employee of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has told NDTV that team leaders at the company's Nashik office used their desks not for official work but to exploit female colleagues mentally and morally. The claims describe a conversion syndicate and a sexual harassment network operating inside one of India's largest IT firms.

The employee said the accused used vulgar language when summoning women to the team leaders' desks.

"All the accused, especially their manner of communication, were completely vulgar. Girls were called to the TL desk and subjected to obscene language unimaginable in any professional or commercial office," the former employee said.

The main accused, Tausif Attar, is alleged to have targeted Hindu religious practices. The witness said he repeatedly ridiculed female employees during festivals when they wore saris or bindis. "On all festivals, when we wore saris, he would question our attire and religion. As we left, he would make such remarks that we began to question how a team leader could mock another religion so much," the employee told NDTV.

The former employee claimed that a colleague named Krishna used to wear a Rudraksha rosary to the office and later converted to Islam. Another revelation concerned Nida Khan, who is under investigation. The former employee said Khan was not an HR official but a process associate who was "mysteriously striving for a transfer and a domain change".

The employee claimed that, in the name of security, staff were required to leave their phones, bags and even lunch boxes outside the office floor so that activities remained "off the record". 

The former employee named two other staff, Danish and Raza, who allegedly booked hotels and resorts for weekends from the office floor and pressured young women employees to join them. The witness described the overall environment as toxic and said she now feels safe after leaving the company. 

She questioned why senior management in such a large corporate organisation had no knowledge of what she called a "parallel system".

The allegations come from one former employee but are part of several claims made by eight female staff at the TCS Nashik office involving sexual harassment and forced religious conversion.

On Thursday, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the central and state governments to control deceitful religious conversion. 

Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, through advocate Ashwani Dubey, filed the application in a pending case on the same subject.

The petition states that the organised religious conversion in Nashik "has shaken the conscience of citizens throughout the country". It argues that deceitful religious conversion threatens sovereignty, secularism, democracy, liberty, fraternity, dignity, unity and national integration.

The petition contends that when forced conversion is part of a systematic, organised and coercive campaign. 

Police in Nashik are investigating nine complaints of mental and sexual harassment linked to the TCS branch. The complaints were filed by eight women employees and cover the period from February 2022 to March 2026. 

A special investigation team was formed last week. Seven employees have been arrested: Danish Sheikh, Tausif Attar, Raza Memon, Shahrukh Qureshi, Shafi Sheikh, Asif Aftab Ansari, and HR manager Nida Khan. 

Another woman employee connected to the ones mentioned above is currently missing. 

All arrested staff have been suspended by TCS.