After techie's death, police summon Ola Krutrim manager in probe

Nikhil Somwanshi, a recent IISc graduate who joined Krutrim less than a year ago, allegedly died by suicide on 8 May amid reports of high-pressure work environment

The police on Monday registered a case of unnatural death following the alleged suicide of a techie working at Krutrim, the artificial intelligence unit of Ola. The death, reportedly linked to work pressure, has triggered scrutiny of the company’s work culture. Police have summoned the manager of Ola’s AI division for questioning, CNBC reported.

 

The death of Nikhil Somwanshi, a young engineer and recent graduate of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has drawn public attention after allegations of toxic workplace practices emerged on social media. Somwanshi had joined Krutrim less than a year ago and allegedly died by suicide on 8 May. 

 

The case gained traction after an anonymous Reddit post—purportedly written by a colleague—went viral, describing the company’s environment as “traumatic,” especially for freshers. The post alleged that Somwanshi was leading a project with two other teammates despite being a recent hire. After both colleagues resigned, the entire workload reportedly fell on him.

 

The post also claimed that the team’s manager was verbally abusive in meetings and worked remotely from the US, while the rest of the team was based in Bengaluru. It further alleged that the company attempted to suppress news of the incident.  Also Read: Krutrim techie's 'suicide' raises question over workplace culture

 

A former Krutrim employee, who had worked closely with the same manager, corroborated the allegations. They said they resigned from the company without another job offer due to the intense pressure and recalled having suicidal thoughts during their tenure.

 

In response, the company stated that Somwanshi was on personal leave at the time of the incident. According to a company spokesperson, he initially reached out to his manager on 8 April, expressing the need for rest, and was granted time off. On 17 April, he informed the team that he was feeling better but requested additional rest, which was granted.

 

“As a company, we are heartbroken by this loss. Nikhil was a valued team member, and his absence will be deeply felt by all who knew and worked with him,” the spokesperson said.

 

According to Somwanshi’s LinkedIn profile, he worked on a large language model (LLM) and a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)-based chatbot called Saathi as part of his master’s thesis, which was funded by the Melinda Gates Foundation.