Global Hindu Heritage Foundation and Save Temples Organisation have suspended Telugu singer Ghazal Srinivas as their brand ambassador following his arrest on charges of sexually harassing one of the women employees at its India office in Hyderabad.
Velagapudi Prakasa Rao, founder and president of the foundation, on Wednesday said the board of directors unanimously decided to suspend Srinivas.
In a video message from the US, he said they were surprised and shocked to hear the allegations of sexual abuse in their India office.
"We don't not tolerate any abuse of power or any infraction of moral conduct," he said.
Rao said the two organisations were started in 2006 by a group of NRIs to protect Hinduism. Their main goal is to free temples from government control and uphold and preserve high morals and ethical principles.
Ghazal Srinivas, whose real name is Kesiraju Srinivas, was arrested by Hyderabad police on Tuesday on charges of sexually harassing a woman, working as jockey for a web radio 'Alayavani' (voice of temples) run by Save Temples Organisation.
The woman complained that Srinivas, who is popular for singing ghazals in Telugu, was harassing her for the last few months. A court later sent the singer to 14-day judicial custody till January 12.
The survivor had submitted videos of Srinivas sexually harassing women employees to the police. Based on the video evidence, police filed a case on December 29 and arrested him on December 2.
In the video which was leaked to media, Srinivas is seen being massaged by one of the woman employees. Police told that Srinivas had threatened several employees in the office to sleep with him or face consequences like sacking them from job or not paying their salary.
Despite his arrest, Srinivas had denied the allegations and maintained that he always treated the woman like his daughter.
The 51-year-old holds the Guinness World Record for singing in most languages (76) at one concert.
With IANS inputs