Lucknow bank employee dies after falling off chair in office, peers allege 'work pressure'

A woman employee of HDFC Bank in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow allegedly died after she fell off her chair in the office on Tuesday (Sep 24). The colleagues of Sadaf Fatima, 24, believe that she died due to extreme work pressure at the office, days after a similar incident involving an Ernst & Young employee who died in Pune.

A report stated Sadaf was posted as Additional Deputy Vice President at HDFC Bank’s Vibhuti Khand branch in Gomtinagar.

After she fell off her chair while working in the office on September 24, Sadaf was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead. Her body was later sent for a post-mortem, it said. The incident soon caught the attention of netizens and political leaders of Uttar Pradesh.

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In a post on X, 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.

Soon the incident became a tool of political blame games and the Samajwadi Party chief also slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and alleged the country's economic policies 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.

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The incident took place at a time when there were already debates going on about the toxic work culture in India that promotes overworking, following the death of E&Y employee Anna Sebastian Perayil.

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The 26-year-old died due to work stress, merely four months into her job in Pune. Following her death, Sebastian’s mother, 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.

Union Minister for Labour Mansukh Mandaviya recently said that Perayil’s case is being probed.

(With inputs from agencies)