Bajaj Finance employee dies by suicide; family alleges mental harassment

Amid rising cases of deaths due to work pressure, a 42-year-old area manager of a private finance company in Jhansi has allegedly died by suicide, with his family accusing senior colleagues of "mental torture" over unmet recovery targets.

The deceased, Tarun Saxena, was found hanging at his home on Sunday. A suicide note recovered by the police has raised serious allegations of exploitation by his superiors at Bajaj Finance, where Saxena was employed as an area manager.

"Tarun Saxena committed suicide by hanging himself with a dupatta. A suicide note was found in which he accused his senior colleagues of mounting pressure by assigning unachievable recovery targets," said Superintendent of Police (City) Gyanendra Kumar Singh.

The note reportedly highlights that Saxena was facing relentless pressure from his seniors to achieve higher recovery targets. "Action will be initiated once the family formally lodges a complaint. The body has been sent for postmortem," the SP added.

Saxena's family has echoed similar concerns, pointing to constant mental harassment as the primary cause of his death. Gaurav Saxena, his brother, told reporters, "Tarun was mentally tortured by his regional manager Prabhakar Mishra and national manager Vaibhav Saxena. They even hurled abuses at him during a virtual conference. He was frustrated the entire night and ultimately took this extreme step on Sunday."

Gaurav further alleged that Tarun was being pushed to achieve 100 per cent recovery of loans and warned that if he failed, he would have to bear the losses personally. "He was assigned tough rural areas like Moth and Talbehat for collection, which only added to the stress," he added.

Despite repeated efforts, Bajaj Finance has not responded to requests for comment on the matter.

A growing trend of work-related deaths

In a separate incident, Anna Sebastian Perayil, a young employee at Ernst & Young (EY) India, also lost her life, reportedly due to overwhelming work-related stress. Anna, who had passed her Chartered Accountancy (CA) exams in 2023, had only been with EY’s Audit team at SR Batliboi in Pune for four months.

Her mother, in a deeply emotional letter, blamed the "glorification of overwork" for her daughter’s untimely death. She recounted how Anna frequently worked late nights and weekends, often returning to her accommodation completely exhausted.

Although Anna had a promising career ahead of her, the extreme demands of her job reportedly took a toll on her health and well-being. Her mother lamented the absence of any EY representatives at her funeral, further fuelling concerns about the corporate culture of overwork that appears to be affecting employees across various sectors.