BENGALURU: A quality analyst allegedly jumped to death from the cafeteria balcony on the fifth floor of her office building in Whitefield on Thursday morning.
Shobha Lakshminarayan
, 28, a resident of
Mahalakshmipuram
, off
West of Chord Road
, was the only child of her parents. Her family had moved to Bengaluru from Hulivana in Mandya district. Shobha had lost her father when she was four and lived with her mother Geetha L. She was employed with
Harman Connected Service Corporation
, a software services provider.
Citing CCTV footage, police said it is a case of suicide. A legal battle with her cousins over ancestral property had reportedly pushed Shobha into depression.
“Like every day, Shobha entered office around 7.30am. After wishing her colleague Suma, she went to the fifth floor at 7.51am through the fire exit. She placed her ID card, mobile and wallet on the parapet of the cafeteria balcony before taking the plunge,” said Narayan, DCP, Whitefield.
Shobha landed in the parking lot and died on the spot, police said. However, no suicide note was recovered. Four books on dealing with depression were recovered from her vanity bag.
The incident didn’t come to light immediately as most employees hadn’t arrived by then. Meanwhile, security personnel Satish YN, who was walking near the parking lot, was shocked to see Shobha’s body around 8am. “I immediately dialled 108 and the ambulance arrived within 15-20 minutes. The ambulance staff told me the woman was dead. We informed Whitefield police and shifted the body to Vydehi Hospital,” he said.
Most of Shobha’s colleagues initially thought she had fallen accidentally. “But police showed us the ID card and cellphone she had left in the balcony. We also saw the CCTV footage, which shows her walking towards the fifth floor. In the four years that she worked with us, we don’t remember her visiting the balcony any time,” Shobha’s colleagues told TOI.
Shobha was fighting a legal battle, depression: Kin Bengaluru: Shobha Lakshminarayan was battling depression, which was triggered by an ongoing legal fight with her cousins over ancestral property.
According to family sources, Shobha and her uncle’s sons were fighting it out in the courts. They said she was under treatment for depression.
“The family owns lands worth crores of rupees in Mandya and Bengaluru. Shobha was upset when she suffered a setback in a lower court in one of the cases. They were fighting many cases in a lower court as well as the high court. Shobha used to say she’s not used to visiting courts and police stations,” her colleagues Vijay, Mahesh and Rajavardhan said. They said Shobha expressed dismay at losing the legal battle for what was her ancestral property.
“She didn’t show up for work on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday morning, her colleague Suma asked her what had happened. Shobha said she didn’t come to work due to a headache,” sources added.
FAMILY DEVASTATEDHeart-wrenching scenes unfolded at Vydehi Hospital where Shobha’s family waited to collect her body after the postmortem.
Maheshbabu, her maternal uncle, was heartbroken as he recalled the hardships Shobha faced in completing engineering. “She lost her father early. It was not easy to complete a course like engineering and join such a big company,” he said.
D Thimmaiah, a constable with a Hoysala vehicle, said he rushed to the spot after receiving a call from Harman, saying a woman had fallen to death. “We received the call around 8.25am, when we were near Sathya Sai Hospital. The 108 ambulance staff declared her dead. Initially, I thought it was an accidental fall. Later, I got to know it was a suicide case,” he said.
She was my only hope: MomShobha was my only hope. My husband passed away when she was just four. I was shattered but didn’t lose confidence. I was elated when Shobha took me to her office two years ago. She was a hardworking girl and was promoted last year
Geetha Lakshminarayan, Shobha’s mother