HYDERABAD: After tremendous pressure from social media over allegations of a delivery boy attacking a domestic help in the city, Flipkart has finally spoken. Adding to the victory for those who fought online, the Banjara Hills police has arrested the culprit.
Mili Srivastava, who took up the assault on her domestic help as a personal insult, couldn’t be happier.
“I just visited the police station. The man is being shifted to jail but his mother was pleading for forgiveness. For all my anger I was reduced to tears at the sight of a mother pleading for her son.
Not sure how we can reform these men so that they don’t commit such crimes,” she said.
Mili got emphatic support on social media, with people re-posting her complaint on Facebook and Twitter. The worst part was that the people were tagging the bigwigs of the company and shaming them. Over night, the anger spread across the country.
“I got the maximum support from New Delhi based folks,” says Mili Srivastava.
Meanwhile, Flipkart is on the defensive. Their official handle on Twitter has responded to tweets questioning their silence on the issue.
“We have been cooperating fully with the police in this matter since we got involved on September 15. We have worked very closely with our manpower sourcing partner to ensure that all the documents requested are furnished immediately,” the company said in a statement.
But the problem was the delay between the date of the incident on September 13 and when the company actually took action, as mentioned in the statement on September 15.
When the company spokesperson was questioned on this, she admitted, “Yes, there was a lapse. And this being the first incident, we have now begun to put new systems in place. We have started sensitising customer service employees on differentiating between generic product related issues and other things that will have to be referred to higher ups immediately.”
So the Hyderabad case has become a case study for the company.
“There is also a complete review of our response system regarding matters of such gravity. Flipkart will ensure that such cases are dealt with immediately in future.”
“We have filed a complaint regarding this matter and we have zero tolerance on matters concerning the safety of our customers, especially women. The senior management of Flipkart has been in touch with the family and will help them to ensure the case reaches its logical conclusion,” the statement added.
