The three Raj Bhavan employees charged in an FIR with wrongful restraint of the woman who has alleged physical advances by the governor are officer on special duty Sandip Singh Rajput, pantry staffer Kusum Chhetri and chaprasi (peon) Sant Lal, police said on Saturday.

Police sources said all three had been served with summons and asked to cooperate with the police investigation.

Raj Bhavan sources said one of the three named in the FIR had taken a flight out of Calcutta on Friday, shortly after formal charges were drawn.

Rajput, one of the OSDs at the Raj Bhavan, had been handpicked by governor C.V. Ananda Bose and is in a "coterminous" post, the sources said. They added that he is known for his proximity to the governor.

A "coterminous" post at the Raj Bhavan means its tenure is the same as that of the governor.

A Raj Bhavan official told this newspaper that Rajput was one of 14 officials the governor had handpicked at the beginning of his tenure and their appointment was formally sanctioned by the state government.

“Everyone knows how close he is to Sir (the governor). We have often heard Sandip Sir saying he had been working with him (Bose) for 17-18 years,” a Raj Bhavan official said.

Chhetri, a pantry staffer who often doubles as a room attendant, was inducted at the Raj Bhavan through the home (political) department of the state government.

Her father too had, before his death, worked at the Raj Bhavan. Chhetri, her mother and her brother were later inducted as contractual employees, sources said.

Lal, also a contractual employee, was recruited similarly. His wife too is a contractual employee at the Raj Bhavan.

Both Chhetri and Lal were inducted before Bose’s tenure began.

“Sant Lal was once promoted informally and given an office on the first floor as an attendant who gets to enjoy proximity with Sir (the governor). But something happened later and he was sent to work downstairs. He now mostly carries the governor’s bags,” a Raj Bhavan official said.

Deputy commissioner of police (central) Indira Mukherjee said: “The FIR-named accused stopped the complainant woman from leaving Raj Bhavan by wrongfully restraining her.”

The complaint lodged by the woman employee who has alleged physical advances by Bose says that Chhetri and Sant had, on Rajput’s instructions, locked her inside the EPABX room on the first floor of the Raj Bhavan minutes after she had stepped out of the governor’s room, crying, on May 2.

Police sources said that all the three named in the FIR were allegedly inside the room, tried to intimidate her, told her to “keep quiet”, and attempted to stop her from going out of the building to lodge a police complaint.

This newspaper had reported on May 7 that three Raj Bhavan employees stood accused of wrongfully restraining the complainant in a room and snatching her phone and bag to ensure she could not contact her family.

Text messages sent to the mobile numbers of Rajput, Chhetri and Lal, seeking their reaction to the charges in the FIR, had not brought any response till Saturday night.

The complainant told this newspaper on Saturday that on April 24, when too she was allegedly harassed by Bose, Rajput had gone to the EPABX room sometime after she had returned to her seat and asked if she was all right.

“On April 24, around 3.45pm, Sandip Sir came to the EPABX room all of a sudden and asked me if everything was all right. In hindsight, I feel he had come to check up on my state at the behest of the governor,” the woman said.

She confirmed that she had had her statement recorded before a magistrate on Friday evening.