APCR run by Prashant Bhushan, which peddled false Muslim-victimhood narrative, attempts to give clean chit to Muslim men who forced TCS Nashik Hindu employees to convert to Islam

A ‘fact-finding’ report released by the controversial ‘civil rights’ organisation, the Association for the Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) at the Mumbai Press Club on Thursday (23rd April), has claimed that there is no evidence to support the allegations of an organised religious conversion activity in the Nashik’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) workplace harassment case. The Nashik TCS workplace harassment case sent shockwaves across the country after victims shared stories of sexual harassment and religious coercion by some Muslim employees at the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) facility. The report is claimed to have been compiled after a five-member team of the APCR visited Nashik to collect the ground details of the case. Activists from People’s Union for Civil Liberty (PUCL), Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), Bombay Catholic Sabha (BCS) and others joined APCR during the release of its report. As per reports, the APCR findings claim that the police officials have indicated that the allegations levelled in the 9 FIRs filed in connection with the case differ among complainants. While the police investigation into the TCS Nashik workplace harassment case is underway, the APCR report has rejected the complaints of the victims, which highlighted the Love Jihad angle and religious coercion in the case. The APCR tries to whitewash the crime and peddle Muslim victimhood in the garb of the ‘fact-finding’ report As per the claims made by the report, the investigation agencies in the TCS Nashik case have not confirmed any organised conspiracy for religious conversion. The report also laments that the religion coercion angle has been made a central theme in the case, while according to APCR’s teams’ findings, no conclusive evidence exists to prove the existence of any organised or systematic activity of religious conversion. APCR’s national secretary, Nadeem Khan, who was booked by the Delhi Police in November 2024 for hatching a criminal conspiracy and promoting enmity and unrest during a communally charged exhibition in Delhi, claimed during the release of the APCR report that the civil society organisations did not trust the investigation being conducted by the Nashik police in the case. He demanded an investigation into the case conducted by a retired high court or supreme court judge. Casting aspersions on the victims’ testimonies, Khan, who has a history of instigating communal feelings, termed the case a conspiracy to prevent Muslims from working in corporate jobs. “The issue will be used to prevent Muslims from securing employment at corporate workplaces. It is difficult to believe that someone can be forced to observe roza for 24 hours. The FIRs filed by the police raise multiple doubts, and their role has become questionable,” Khan said. Khan also raised suspicion over the undercover operation by the Nashik police, which uncovered the entire case, questioning how the undercover cops could not ascertain the job profile of the accused Nida Khan even after spending three weeks at the BPO. Notably, the TCS has recently released an official statement, clarifying that Nida Khan is not an HR Manager at the BPO as stated in several media reports, but holds the post of a process associate. Pertinently, the role of a process associate falls within the larger HR framework. Besides, the fact that the job profile of Nida Khan was not accurately mentioned in the media reports does not take away from the fact that she did work at the BPO office and that she has been named as an accused in the FIRs. Controversial activist Teesta Setalvad also termed the case “manufactured.” “The Nashik case is a manufactured case that will not hold in a court of law. The process is the punishment. A crime should never be seen through the lens of religion or caste. It is important to note that Nida Khan is being targeted because of her gender,” said secretary of Citizens for Justice and Peace, Teesta Setalvad. Joining Khan’s claims, former journalist and a Nashik-based activist, Niranjan Takle, alleged that the first complaint in the TCS Nashik case was made by a person who was an employee at the BPO and was not a victim. He demanded that narco tests should be conducted on the victims and the accused to find out the truth. “The allegations in most of these FIRs are vague and can not be proven. The truth will come out only when the complainants and the accused will be made to undergo narco tests,” Takle said. Controversial ‘activist’ and CJP’s secretary, Teesta Setalvad, said that workplace sexual harassment cases formed the least number of total 12,019 complaints reported by the Maharashtra. The so-called activists present at the release of the APCR report dismissed the entire case as a ploy to cover the sexual exploitation involving the Nashik astrologer Ashok Kharat. They also alleged that the Nashik TCS case was also a ruse to avoid public scrutiny of alleged tree-cutting by the Nashik civic body for the Simhastha Kumbh Mela and another alleged housing-related scam. Horrifying details of sexual harassment and religious coercion revealed by victims in multiple FIRs filed in the case The claims made by the APCR report fall flat on a mere perusal of the details divulged by the victims relating to sexual harassment and religious coercion in the multiple FIRs filed in the Nashik TCS workplace harassment case. The first FIR in the TCS grooming jihad case was registered on 23rd March at the Deolali Camp Police Station in Nashik.  Following the registration of the FIR, some women cops went undercover in the company to investigate the matter. The undercover operation exposed stories of victims who were subjected to sustained sexual harassment, vulgar innuendos, physical advances, invasive questions, and derogatory commentary against Hindu deities at the BPO for years. This led to multiple victims coming forward and filing FIRs against the accused. As per the complaints made by the victims, six Muslim employees working as team leaders and two women, including a Muslim, were forcing Hindu women to convert to Islam, offer namaz and eat beef. The Islamist horror against Hindu women at the TCS BPO office in Nashik continued for over four years. In an FIR dated April 3, 2026, the 23-year-old Hindu victim stated that Raza Meman and Shahrukh Qureshi made sexually coloured remarks against her and mocked Hindu customs. In another FIR registered on April 2, 2026, filed by another 23-year-old Hindu woman, she named five accused and revealed how she was sexually harassed and made to bear religious insults. The victim, who had recently married, said that Shahrukh Qureshi and Raza Meman repeatedly questioned her about her honeymoon, sexual life, and past relationships in an intrusive and inappropriate manner. She said that Asif Ansari made derogatory comments about Hindu practices, including statements suggesting that sexual violence occurs in Hindu communities because women do not wear burqas, along with remarks mocking Hindu deities. Another FIR stated that the Muslim accused mocked Hindu deities Brahma, Ram and Sita. The accused called Brahma a rapist of his own daughter and claimed that Ram and Sita ate meat during their exile. The Muslim accused derisively mocked the existence of Lord Shiva, and cast aspersions on the father of Lord Ganesha, the Elephant-headed Hindu God. The victims in their complaints stated how their repeated complaints about the misconduct of the accused, including consistent mocking of Hindu religious beliefs, went unnoticed. The victims’ testimonies demonstrate how the accused took advantage of the workplace power to suppress the complaints relating to the sexual harassment, exploitation, and religious brainwashing to ultimately convert them to Islam. The APCR report conveniently overlooks the details revealed by the victims in their complaints and bases its so-called fact-finding report on a selected and distorted version of facts. APCR’s tainted track record of peddling Muslim victimhood The APCR presents itself as a non-profit working to “bridge the gap between law and justice”, but its track record tells a different story. Constituted in 2006 and registered under the Societies Registration Act, the organisation claims to offer free legal aid, financial assistance and legal literacy programmes through workshops and seminars. The organisation has repeatedly appeared in controversial cases, often extending legal aid to individuals accused in violent incidents such as the Sambhal violence and the anti-Hindu Delhi riots. Its so-called “fact-finding reports” read less like neutral documentation and more like one-sided propaganda designed to shield certain groups while vilifying others. The current ‘fact-finding’ report of the APCR is not the only time the organisation has attempted to peddle a manufactured ‘Muslim victimhood’ narrative. In July 2024, the organisation released a report claiming that incidents of anti-Muslim crimes have increased in India following the Lok Sabha Election results, in which the Modi government retained power. The report was used by several media houses, including Free Press Journal, Clarion, Muslim Mirror and others to make similar claims. The APCR is notorious for cherry-picking and selective reporting, which indicates how the organisation has been trying to create a communal rift in the country and projecting a bad image of India on international platforms. The baseless claims made by the APCR were debunked by OpIndia in our report.