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Lucknow: HDFC Bank employee dies after falling off chair, peers allege ‘work pressure’
Sadaf Fatima died in office after she fell off her chair inside HDFC Bank's premises. She was rushed to a nearby hospital but was declared dead.
A woman employee of HDFC Bank in Lucknow allegedly died due to work pressure on Tuesday, days after a similar incident involving an Ernst & Young employee in Pune, News18 reported.
The employee identified as Sadaf Fatima was posted as additional deputy vice-president at HDFC Bank’s Vibuti Khand branch in Gomti Nagar. The News18 report claimed that Fatima died in office after she fell off her chair inside bank premises, quoting unnamed colleagues. She was rushed to a nearby hospital but was declared dead and her body was sent to undergo a postmortem.
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.
Also read | EY Pune employee death: BJP leader calls for investigation, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP reacts: ‘…we glorify 72-hour work’
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.
What happened at EY Pune?
The employee named Anna Sebastian Perayil passed her CA exams in 2023 and worked at EY India for four months as part of the Audit team at S R Batliboi, a member firm of EY Global, in Pune. Her career was cut short as she passed away due to what her mother claimed as “glorification of overwork”.
Also read | EY employee death: Nirmala Sitharaman calls for ‘stress management lessons’; Congress lashes out
In her letter, Anna’s mother claimed that it was her daughter’s first job, and she was excited about joining the company. Within just four months, however, she succumbed to “excessive workload.” The victim also worked late into the night and on weekends, returned to her PG accommodation completely exhausted on most days. She was also burdened with “backbreaking work” as a newcomer, the letter claimed, noting that nobody from the company attended her funeral.
