An HDFC Bank employee in Lucknow, Sadaf Fatima, died while she was working in her office, sparking concerns about workplace stress.
Days after the death of a Pune employee due to work pressure caught the attention of the government, a Lucknow woman, working with HDFC Bank, fell off her chair in the office and died. Her colleagues told Dainik Bhaskar that she was under work pressure.
The incident happened on Tuesday and the woman was identified as 45-year-old Sadaf Fatima. She was posted as Additional Deputy Vice-President at HDFC Bank’s Vibuti Khand branch in Gomtinagar, a report with the publication stated.
On September 24, Sadaf fell off her chair while working in the office. She was rushed to a hospital, where she was declared dead, it said.
Commenting on the woman’s death, Vibhutikhand ACP Radharaman Singh told news agency ANI that Sadaf Fatima died under “suspicious circumstances” while working.
“The Panchnama of her body has been filled, and it has been sent for postmortem. The cause of death will be clear after the postmortem,” he said.
AKHILESH YADAV TRAINS GUNS ON BJP
In an X post, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav termed the incident “worrying” and said it was “a symbol of the current economic pressure in the country”.
“All companies and government departments will have to think seriously in this regard. This is an irreparable loss of the country’s human resources. Such sudden deaths bring the working conditions under question. The real measure of the progress of any country is not the increase in the figures of services or products but how mentally free, healthy and happy a person is,” a rough translation of Akhilesh Yadav’s post in Hindi suggested.
The Samajwadi Party chief also slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and alleged the economic policies of the country had failed.
“Due to the failed economic policies of the BJP government, the business of companies has reduced so much that to save their business, they make fewer people do many times more work. The BJP government is as much responsible for such sudden deaths as the statements of BJP leaders that mentally demoralize the public,” he tweeted.
“To overcome this problem, companies and government departments should make active and meaningful efforts for ‘immediate improvement’,” his post read.
PUNE WOMAN DIED OF WORK PRESSURE
In July this year, a woman chartered accountant, identified as 26-year-old Anna Sebastian Perayil, died due to work stress, merely four months into joining Ernst & Young (EY), a firm in Pune.
Following her death, Sebastian’s mother, in September, wrote to EY India chairman, Rajiv Memani, alleging that the workload and extended working hours took a toll on her daughter. The firm, however, denied the allegations.
In response, the firm said that Anna Sebastian Perayil was part of the Audit team at SR Batliboi. The company expressed deep sorrow over the “irreparable loss” of the young employee and emphasised that they “assisted the family during this tragic time”.
Later, Union Minister for Labour Mansukh Mandaviya said Perayil’s case is being probed.
In the latest development, an official told news agency PTI that the Pune firm has been functioning since 2007 without a license under the Shops Act, which stipulates employees’ welfare among other conditions.
