Last Updated:
Nikhil Somwanshi, a recent graduate of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) who joined the company less than a year ago, died by suicide on May 8 due to alleged work pressure.
Nikhil Somwanshi, an engineer at Ola’s Krutrim, died by suicide on May 8. (LinkedIn/X)
A young engineer working at Ola’s artificial intelligence arm, Krutrim, died by suicide on May 8, allegedly due to extreme work pressure. Weeks after his death, social media is abuzz with allegations of toxic workplace culture.
Nikhil Somwanshi, a recent graduate of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), had joined Krutrim less than a year ago before taking the extreme step. The company confirmed the tragic passing of the engineer and expressed its “thoughts and heartfelt sympathies” with his family.
According to reports, Somwanshi was an outstanding student with a 9.30 GPA, but Krutrim’s US-based manager, Rajkiran Panuganti, burdened him with additional responsibilities.
A Reddit post painted a grim picture of the workplace culture at Krutrim and shed new light on the techie’s suicide. According to the user named ‘Kirigawakazuto’, Somwanshi was leading a project despite being a fresher and was assigned additional responsibilities after two of his colleagues left the company.
The post also named Rajkiran Panuganti, who allegedly verbally abused employees, particularly freshers. According to the Reddit user, Panuganti had no idea how to manage people and frequently bashed people and then disappeared.
The user said even after Somwanshi’s death, there had been no behavioural change in the company and authorities had forbidden employees to talk about the incident. He described the situation at the company “pathetic” and accused the manager of taking his frustrations on the employees.
Speaking to the Financial Express, an ex-employee, who had worked with Somwanshi in the past, corroborated the allegations and said the manager had no people management skills. He also said current employees have been forbidden to speak to media or police about the engineer’s death.
However, the company said Somwanshi was on leave during the time of his death and he had informed his manager that he needed rest for some days, and his leave was extended at his request.
According to Somwanshi’s LinkedIn profile, he had previously worked on a large language model (LLM) and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)-based chatbot called Saathi as part of his master’s thesis, funded by the Melinda Gates Foundation.
Disclaimer: If you or someone you know needs help, call any of these helplines: Aasra (Mumbai) 022-27546669, Sneha (Chennai) 044-24640050, Sumaitri (Delhi) 011-23389090, Cooj (Goa) 0832- 2252525, Jeevan (Jamshedpur) 065-76453841, Pratheeksha (Kochi) 048-42448830, Maithri (Kochi) 0484-2540530, Roshni (Hyderabad) 040-66202000, Lifeline 033-64643267 (Kolkata)
- First Published:
