“Without Sleep for 45 Days”; Loan Company Employee Company Ends Life Alleging Work Pressure

Lucknow: A 42-year-old area manager of Bajaj Finance, Tarun Saxena committed suicide in Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi. In his leetr before death to his wife, he alleged that his seniors at work had been pressuring him to meet his targets for the past two months and threatening him with salary deductions. Bajaj Finance is yet to respond to the allegations.

Tarun is survived by his parents, wife and two children. He was

found dead on Monday morning by the house help. Before committing suicide he had locked his wife and two children in another room.

He left a five-page letter addressed to his wife. In this letter, Tarun mentioned that he was under immense stress because he could not meet targets despite trying his best.

Tarun was collecting EMIs of Bajaj Finance loans from his area, but was falling short of targets. He was worried that he may lose his job. He wrote that his seniors repeatedly humiliated him.

“I have not slept for 45 days. I have hardly eaten. I am under a lot of stress. Senior managers are pressuring me to meet targets at any cost or quit,” he wrote in the letter.

He also named his seniors and asked his family to register a police complaint against them. “They are responsible for my decision.”

Tarun Saxena’s death by suicide follows the death of a 26-year-old chartered accountant Anna Sebastian Perayil. A letter by Anna’s mother Anita Augustine sparked massive outrage on social media. In a letter to Ernst & Young India chairman Rajiv Memani, she wrote that her daughter died just four months after joining the company and called on its leadership to change a work culture that “seems to glorify overwork while neglecting the very human being behind the role”. She wrote that Anna worked late into the night, even on weekends, “with no opportunity to catch her breath”. The Union Labour ministry has launched a probe into the circumstances leading to her daughter’s death