The community was shocked by the incident involving a Scheduled Caste woman sanitation worker who was reportedly humiliated for refusing to remove human feces in Sriperumbudur Panchayat.
Geja, a widow from Sriperumbudur who has worked as a full-time sanitation worker for 25 years in Kanchipuram district, faced an unsettling situation recently. According to her account, her supervisor, Sekkizhar, instructed her to remove human waste from a public area. Geja refused, stating that her job was to collect garbage, not to handle human feces. In response, Sekkizhar allegedly issued her a memo, accusing her of insubordination. As Geja is illiterate, the clerk had her sign the document without fully understanding its contents. Geja has now filed a complaint, accusing her supervisor of unfair treatment and seeking justice for the humiliation she endured.
In a formal complaint letter submitted to the police, Geja recounted the events that led to her mistreatment. She explained, “I was instructed to come to work that afternoon on 22 January 2025, as there was an inspection scheduled with the Collector and other officials. I arrived at 2:00 pm, along with five others, to clean the crematorium in Ward 4 of Sriperumbudur. We traveled by tractor and began cleaning the area. While we cleared the garbage from the crematorium, we encountered dried human excrement outside the premises, as well as wet human waste, which we found disgusting to touch but cleared the dried ones and decided not to handle the other. At this point, Sekkizhar, a 57-year-old employee of Sriperumbudur Panchayat, arrived. He instructed the driver to turn the cart around, claiming we weren’t working properly. Then, he made inappropriate remarks, asking, ‘Have you come to pick hair?’ After driving a short distance, he asked, ‘Why haven’t we pick the feces,’ and I told him that we were there to collect garbage , not to pick feces. He responded with disrespectful words that made me uncomfortable, asking, ‘To S*ck whose c*ck are you here for?'” Later, Sekkizhar made several offensive comments, which depressed me. On 24 January 2025 he also had me sign a document, but I couldn’t read it as I am illiterate. When I returned home and showed the document to my family, I discovered that it falsely claimed I had failed to do my work and prevented other workers from doing theirs. I was devastated to see such accusations, especially considering that I had been subjected to this humiliation despite my long years of service. What was even more upsetting was that, at my age, I was treated with such disrespect. Sekkizhar is not a sanitation supervisor but has been working in the sanitation department for years. His actions were not only unfair but also deeply demeaning. This experience has left me feeling deeply hurt and disrespected.”
This happened on the 22nd .The 60 year old Dalit sanitation worker in Sriperumbudur #TamilNadu was asked to clean human fecal matter with bare hands and when she said no ,the OBC supervisor from Naicker community who used sexual language against her and caste slur. She left the… https://t.co/yZfbkS6dub
— Shalin Maria Lawrence (@TheBluePen25) January 26, 2025
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