Boss faces call-centre death case

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/business/7258837.stm

Version 0 of 1.

The boss of a call-centre worker who was raped and murdered on her way home from work in India is to be prosecuted for providing insufficient security.

Som Mittal was managing director of Hewlett-Packard GlobalSoft in 2005 when Pratibha Srikanth Murthy was killed.

She was being driven home after her night-shift in Bangalore when the driver of her company taxi raped and murdered her, according to police.

The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the charges being brought.

The government of Karnataka State, of which Bangalore is the capital, is bringing the case under laws that require certain businesses to provide safe transport for female employees travelling to and from the office at night.

Token fine

Mr Mittal is now the president of the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), which is the main industry body for India's outsourcing industry.

Nasscom itself helped draw up guidelines saying that guards should accompany drivers in company taxis and that female employees should not be the first picked up or the last dropped off.

If found guilty, Mr Mittal would face a fine of 1,000 rupees ($25; £12.70) and would also get a criminal record.

But there has been great interest in the case in India, where about 700,000 people are employed in call-centres, about 40% of whom are women.