India, Inc. gears up to defeat terror
Cos are making background check more stringent after the arrest of a few employees for alleged terror links.
By Bhanu Pande and Vinod Mahanta, TNN |
NEW DELHI: Ominous shadows of terrorism have set alarm bells ringing at India Inc. With terrorists resorting to high-tech methods, corporates — especially the high-tech industry — have become a crucial poaching ground for terror factories across the world. India is no different.
The arrest of a Microsoft software engineer, Muhammad Shaikh for the alleged link in Mumbai blasts has raised concerns across companies.
In a more recent instance, an employee of Jet Airways is alleged to have been involved in a conspiracy to blow up airplanes taking off from London’s Heathrow airport, has aggravated such fears amongst the companies. Last year, the Delhi Police arrested a regional representative of a pharma and personal care major on charges of having aided funding for multiple blasts in Delhi last Dussehera.
No wonder then, that almost all companies are deliberating on the mechanism to avoid occurrence of any such instance from their premises. What best way to do it than tinkering with recruitment process itself.
Companies which took antecedent verification of the candidate for recruitment as routine, are increasingly putting processes in place to make it robust like never before. Most tech companies are looking at the issue with seriousness even though they refrain from making any official comments.
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Take the case of Microsoft. The company agrees there is a need to address this problem and maintains that while conducting background checks, it is also strengthening the system to make it better. “Just as a precautionary measure, we are tightening our background and reference checks,” says the company spokesperson. With reference to the arrested employee, Microsoft legal and corporate affairs head, Rakesh Bakshi, said, “Mohammad Shaikh was employed with Microsoft from October ’04 to March ’06. He resigned earlier this year and since then we have no information about his whereabouts.”
Other IT companies declined to comment. “It’s our policy not to comment on such matters,” said an IBM spokesperson. ET’s questionnaire to several companies went unanswered, but sources admit that all companies are being strict in their recruitment process and are sacking people in case they detect any discrepancy in the candidates’ resume.
While the companies are reluctant to talk about what they are doing, insiders and HR consultants confirm that all are working with a sense of urgency. “The companies in India are falling in line with international process for employee verification. It’s not just reference check alone, but detailed background check that is in vogue now,” says
K Sudarshan, managing partner, EMA Partners India. “We are asked to be transparent with the candidate before we make such verifications,” he added.
The task is not easy in the Indian context, analysts say. That’s due to the absence of a centralised criminal database with a national footprint. “Employee background screening is mainly restricted to checking education and employment, and only a small bunch of companies ask for a criminal record check. It’s also due to the complexity and impracticality of a criminal record check,” says Ashish Dehade, MD, First Advantage Quest Research, a Mumbai-based firm that specialises in employee verification. On the other hand, most companies face problems in such checks in the absence of any national level identification code such as social security number in the US.
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