Stress starts taking toll, suicides on rise in IT hub

On Thursday, software engineer P Rama Krishna and his wife Soumya were found dead in their flat in Annapurna enclave of Chandan Nagar. Rama Krishna left a note saying he couldn’t take his wife’s suspicious behaviour anymore and was committing suicide. The couple had got married a year ago.

After speaking to relatives, the police said Soumya suspected he was having an affair at his workplace and she used to often threaten to commit suicide. Rama Krishna, who was working with Infotech in Madhapur in Hyderabad and had recently quit to join Satyam in Bangalore, was apparently tipped to go to Canada. His 10-page note says he wanted to do many things in life — watch IPL cricket matches live in Hyderabad, go to Chiranjeevi movies and vote for him when he launched a party. “But I am hurt by my wife’s behaviour,” he wrote. It is not yet clear if Soumya consumed the pesticide first and her husband followed or he forced her to consume it with him. “We are investigating if one of them poisoned the other and then committed suicide,” says senior inspector of Chandan Nagar police station, Amarnath Reddy.

On March 10, software professional K Ramesh and his wife Sirisha were found dead in their house in Geetha Nagar in Vijayawada. Ramesh, who worked in Hyderabad for a few months, was supposed to move to Hyderabad next morning where he got a high-paying job and had already sold off all his furniture. The next morning, however, their relatives found the door locked from inside and when they broke open, they found the couple lying dead on the floor.

There was an injury on Sirisha’s neck. The police found a pesticide bottle and bloodstained knife. Vijayawada police said the suicide note left by Ramesh was vague, saying he felt cheated and was ending his life.

On January 11, software engineer Revathi (23) jumped from the top floor of her office building, located at Madhapur. Police booked her friend and software engineer K Naved for abetting the suicide. Revathi was depressed as Naved was reportedly seeing another girl.

Managements of the numerous software firms in Hyderabad are extremely touchy about the issue of employees facing work related stress. “We try to keep the atmosphere in office as stress-free as possible. Our employees are well paid and are not overworked. On the professional front, they may not be facing any problems,” an official of a software firm said on Friday.