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I am re-publishing Mr. Basant Patel's comment as a post as it contains a message that needs to be spread. Please read the full post...


Basant
October 11, 2008 12:19 PM

Dear Chetan

Following tragic death of Pooja Patel, my beloved daughter in an unfortunate incident at Infosys campus in Mysore on 5th October, 2008, there has been many press reports, news items and comments. Most of them have several factual inaccuracies and few of them are even reputation damaging. As a father, I feel it necessary to set the facts correct particularly for those already in Campus or are likely to join there and their parents. While waiting for joining, Pooja used to follow your blogs regularly (I am told most do the same), I feel this place as a right platform for my purpose.



We are Gujaratis and settled in Bhubaneswar and I am a well paid Senior Executive. All along Pooja was excellent in academics and never scored less than 65% in any exam through out her career. She passed engineering with CGPA of 8.5. Right from her 3rd sem she was determined to work in Infosys. In her life, she was intelligent, sensitive and jolly girl, of course little on the stronger side on her determination to achieve anything she desired. In our family and friends she was indeed a role model. We are a very liberal family where we shared everything and were more like friends.

To best of my knowledge, she was extremely happy being at Infosys, Mysore. Since 7th September when I dropped her at Mysore, she was in touch with me and my family daily and used to share her experiences. At no point of time she ever expressed being unhappy there or any other problems including personal issues, if any. She told us about the marketing she did in Mysore town on 2nd October, Garba-Dandia Raas (her favourite) on 3rd and the project assignment she did with her group on 4th night. My last talk with her was on 5th morning (11.25 AM) and she appeared absolutely fine.

She had told me about her getting A+ grades in 3 assignments/modules that she had completed so far (later confirmed by Infosys HR also) and was determined to get ultimate score of around 5 in her generic training. In Campus, she shared room with her college mate who was also her group mate in Infy class.

Till date we are at a loss to understand the incident and the reasons. That she has not left any note, mail, sms or has not shared anything with us or her room mate, has compounded the problem making us to speculate. I was in Mysore on 6th and 7th and have met several people but yet to find the reason of incident or her taking such a drastic step. I believe both police & Infosys are trying to find the answers. Infy Campus is indeed a highly secured place for any foul play to happen.

Infosys people including M. Nayar Head-Centre did the best to share my grief and extended assistance to complete cremation formalities.

Let us pray Almighty for peace to the departed soul.

Basant Patel
Basant.Patel@gmail.com