Reacting to the incident, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav said the work pressure and stress has become the same everywhere from government to private jobs and people are working out of ‘compulsion’.
A 45-year-old HDFC Bank employee, identified as Sadaf Fatima, died under mysterious circumstances while at work in Lucknow, according to police reports. Fatima, who held the position of Additional Deputy Vice-President at the bank’s Vibuti Khand branch in Gomti Nagar, reportedly collapsed from her chair and passed away instantly. Despite being rushed to a nearby hospital, she was declared dead upon arrival, and her body was sent for a post-mortem examination to determine the cause of death.
This tragic incident follows a similar case involving an Ernst & Young employee in Pune, sparking concerns about workplace pressure. Reports from Dainik Bhaskar and other sources suggest that Fatima’s colleagues claimed she was experiencing work pressure.
“Additional Deputy VP of HDFC Bank in Vibhutikhand, Sadaf Fatima (45), dies under suspicious circumstances while working. The panchnama (record of observation) of her body has been filled, and it has been sent for postmortem. The cause of death will be clear after the postmortem,” Vibhutikhand Assistant Commissioner of Police Radharaman Singh told news agency ANI.
Reacting to the incident, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav said the work pressure and stress has become the same everywhere from government to private jobs and people are working out of ‘compulsion’.
“The condition of employed people has become worse than bonded labourers because they do not even have the right to speak. Government is there to solve problems, not to give baseless suggestions,” Akhilesh Yadav posted X.
The SP chief took a dig at finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s recent suggestion that the youth under work pressure need lessons on stress ‘management’.
“Instead of improving the working conditions, the BJP minister who is lecturing the youth of the country to develop the strength to withstand pressure, is further distressing the youth in this environment of grief, and is requested that if her government cannot provide any solace, cannot bring about any improvement, then it should not do so, but should not increase public anger with its heartless and insensitive advice in the context of this incident,” he wrote.
लखनऊ में काम के दबाव और तनाव के कारण एचडीएफ़सी की एक महिलाकर्मी की ऑफिस में ही, कुर्सी से गिरकर, मृत्यु का समाचार बेहद चिंतनीय है।
ऐसे समाचार देश में वर्तमान अर्थव्यवस्था के दबाव के प्रतीक हैं। इस संदर्भ में सभी कंपनियों और सरकारी विभागों तक को गंभीरता से सोचना होगा। ये देश के… pic.twitter.com/Xj49E01MSs
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) September 24, 2024
Earlier in July, a 26-year-old woman named Anna Sebastian Perayil, a chartered accountant, tragically died due to alleged work stress just four months after joining Ernst & Young (EY) in Pune. Following her death, Sebastian’s mother wrote a letter in September to Rajiv Memani, the Chairman of EY India, accusing the firm of imposing excessive workloads and long working hours, which she claimed severely impacted her daughter’s health.
Despite the allegations, EY denied any connection between the company’s working conditions and Sebastian’s death. This incident has sparked renewed debates about the mental and physical toll that high-pressure work environments, particularly in professional services firms, can have on employees, highlighting the need for better support systems in such settings.
