'Wipro staff driven to suicide by financial woes'

A Wipro employee, whose body was found on the railway tracks three months ago amid allegations of his involvement in embezzlement of $4-million of the firm, had committed suicide, police said on Tuesday.

The body of 26-year-old Anup Kumar Agarwal was recovered from railway tracks between Byappanahalli and Krishnarajapuram stations on December 23, a few days after the company discovered the fraud and his alleged role in it.

Agarwal, a resident of Orissa and a chartered accountant by profession, was working as an assistant manager at Wipro Finance.

"We received a call from the station master that a body had been found on the tracks between K R Puram and Byappanahalli at 7.45 am," D C Rajappa, Railway SP, Bangalore, told PTI.

An inquest was done and the body identified as that of Anup, son of Sajjan, was handed over to the family, he said. The police were not aware of details of the embezzlement case at that point of time, he said.

"We had registered a case of unnatural death," he said.

Anup's wife had given a statement in writing that her husband was going through some financial problems and was worried and hence had resorted to the extreme step.

The deceased had left behind no suicide note, he said.

The post mortem report said he had died of shock and haemorrhage and had suffered multiple fractures.

Rajappa said Wipro had so far neither registered any complaint with the Railway Police nor asked for a probe. On the next course of action, he said no complaint was filed till now and police will act on receiving one.

The Bangalore-headquartered Wipro had said in a statement on February 17 that it was looking into an embezzlement case involving one of its employees.

Wipro sources had said the extent of embezzlement was estimated to be around Rs 32 crore ($4 million).

Wipro had hired investigative and legal agencies in the wake of the alleged fraud.

Image: Azim Premji