Pune scientist finds out her cook isn’t Brahmin, files police complaint

A senior government scientist, a Brahmin, has filed a case of impersonation against her cook for allegedly lying about her caste when she she sought a job at her home in Pune.

Dr Medha Vinayak Khole, deputy director general for weather forecasting at the India Meteorological Department, has alleged in her police complaint the cook abused her when she questioned about her caste. Khole told the police that she wanted a married Brahmin woman to cook for her at family events like the death anniversary of her parents and the Gauri Ganpti Festival.

A woman named Nirmala Kulkarni, a resident of Dhayari, approached Khole in 2016 for the job, but a year later a priest informed the scientist that the woman cooking for her was not a Brahmin.

Khole has said she visited Kulkarni’s home in Dhayari to investigate and found that the her name is Nirmala Yadav and not Kulkarni and that she was unmarried. Khole says she decided to file a police complaint because Yadav abused her.

A case under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Section 419 for impersonation, Section 352 for assault or use of criminal force and Section 504 for insulting a person with an intent to provoke breach of peace was registered at Sinhagad road police station.

“When we asked the reason to the woman for concealing her cast, she said that her financial condition is not good and to get money, she required the job. However, since Khole wanted a cook from Brahmin community only, the woman concealed her real caste to get the job,” Assistant Police Inspector Jyoti Gadkari told DNA newspaper.

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