Fabindia MD William Bissell on Friday said CCTV cameras at its stores are installed according to standard safety and security procedures and asserted there has "never" been any incident of uncivilised behaviour by its staff.
Four employees of a Fabindia outlet were arrested this evening in connection with the hidden camera incident while top bosses of the ethnic lifestyle brand will be questioned by police on Saturday.
The employees, working at Fabindia-owned outlet at Candolim village near Goa - who were earlier detained for questioning - were put under arrest in the evening, Karthik Kashyap, SP of Goa Crime Branch, said.
They were booked under IPC Sections 354 C (voyeurism), 509 (intrusion into privacy) and also IT Act's 66E (capturing, publishing image of private area of any person without his/her consent). They were identified as Paresh Bhagat, Raju Payanche, Prashant Naik and Karim Lakhani.
Embarrassed by the hidden camera incident, Fabindia MD William Bissell on Friday said CCTV cameras at its stores are installed according to standard safety and security procedures and asserted there has "never" been any incident of uncivilised behaviour by its staff.
A team of senior officials has been rushed to the coastal state to deal with the situation, he said.
"We do not have all the facts with us. Obviously any such incident creates anguish and tension. My top management will be in Goa soon. And my local staff has been fully cooperating with the police," he told PTI. Bissell also said over 70% of the company's employees and a significant number of managers were women.
He said the CCTV cameras at the stores are as per the standard safety and security procedures and there has "never been any incident of uncivilised behaviour by our company staff". The store which Union minister Smriti Irani had visited is a company-owned one, he said. He, however, refused to disclose any details on the action the company is taking, saying he doesn't have all the information.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Fabindia said it is "deeply concerned and shocked at this allegation. We are in the process of investigating this internally and will be cooperating fully with the police".
While trying clothes at the outlet at Candolim village near Panaji this morning, Irani spotted a hidden camera positioned to record inside of the small room.
Fabindia had a turnover of over Rs 1,000 crore last fiscal. The homegrown ethnic lifestyle brand was set up in 1960 in Delhi by John Bissell, an American who was working with the Ford Foundation then. It has around 200 stores across the country and abroad and is managed by his son William now. It claims a customer base of over 2 million.
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