IBM woman staffer found murdered in Pune

A woman employee of IBM was found murdered on the outskirts of Pune late Friday night, police said Saturday.

Darshana Devidas Tongare, 21, a trainee engineer at IBM, was returning home from work on Friday night. Her boyfriend Abhijeet Taru had dropped her in an autorickshaw at 9pm near Bavdhan village, not too far from her Suvarna Society residence. Minutes later, she was attacked by an unidentified assailant, who stabbed her in the chest with a sharp object, said an official of the Hinjewadi police station. She succumbed to her injuries at Sahyadri Hospital, Kothrud, two hours later.

Daughter of Devidas Tongare, an associate professor at Pune’s National Defence Academy, and an alumnus of the College of Engineering, Darshana was barely two months into her job at Yerawada. She’d posted a message on Facebook on June 30, saying, “Today I got my first salary.”

DCP Dnyaneshwar Chavan said she was attacked at a petrol pump close to her residence.  

According to the police, the unidentified suspect stabbed Darshana once in the chest before fleeing into the darkness of the neighbourhood. Minutes after the incident, Darshana urged a passer-by, Niranjan Suryakant Badde, 24, to help her. Badde tried to catch the suspect but failed.

The injured Darshana then called Taru on his cell phone. She was soon admitted to Om Hospital by Taru, Badde and others, before being brought to the Sahyadri Hospital, Kothrud.

Taru, who had studied with Darshana at COEP and had known her for a few years, told the police that he was unaware of anyone troubling Darshana or taking unusual interest in her affairs.

The police are questioning the victim’s friends and family for leads. “Prima facie, we suspect that a one-sided love affair is the motive of the murder,” DCP Chavan said. A few hours before her death, Darshana had spoken to the police on telephone and stated that she did not know who had stabbed her.

After completing her studies at Sardar Dastur Girls High School, Darshana studied at COEP, from where she graduated with a BTech. Her mother Dipika is a homemaker and brother Ketan is studying for an MBA. Darshana’s body was taken by her family to her hometown Nashik for the last rites.

This is the second incident of murder involving an IT employee in the quiet Hinjewadi suburb of Pune in the past nine months. Last October, Nayana Pujari, an employee of the software firm, Synechron, was gang-raped and murdered by some unknown assailants. In April this year, a married woman who had gone for a job interview was gang-raped by some men who offered her a lift in their vehicle.