Mumbai: Well-known investor and founder of Pinstorm, Mahesh Murthy has been arrested by Mumbai Police on sexual harassment charges based on a complaint filed by Delhi-based women.
After the intervention of National Commission for Women, which came after several complaints against Mahesh Murthy, Mumbai police registered a case against Mahesh for Sexual harassment in January. He has been arrested under Section 354 IPC read with 67A of IT Act.
NCW tweeted on Friday saying, “Based on a complaint filed at the Commission and following NCW’s successful intervention, Mahesh Murthy has been arrested by Mumbai Police today u/Sec 354 IPC read with 67A of IT Act.”
After a woman filed a complaint against him, NCW wrote to Director General of Police, Maharashtra, requesting him to personally get involved to investigate the matter and take strict action as per law and procedure against the accused. They wrote to the DGP alleging that there have been several complaints against him for objectionable, derogatory, sexual and obscene signs on social media.
Following this a case was registered against him under section 354 (D), 509 of IPC and under section 67 of IT Act at Khar Police Station.
Complaints against Mahesh Murthy, dating back to 2003, came to light around April 2017. He was accused of inappropriate physical and verbal behaviour. There were also complaints of him physically grabbing women.
A woman spoke to FactorDaily in a story published on April 21, 2017, claiming that Mahesh Murthy behaved inappropriately with her at a coffee shop in 2003 and 2004. There were other instances of inappropriate messages on Facebook and WhatsApp.
When his founding partners at his venture capital fund Seedfund were asked about his behaviour, they said that while they do not endorse or condone the alleged behavior, there were at least two instances when the fund’s limited partners asked about allegations against Murthy.
Mahesh put out a post on Medium attempting to justify and apologise, which wasn’t received very well.
