A tragic incident of alleged workplace harassment has come to light from Assam, Bongaigaon district, where a young woman engineer, Joshita Das, died by suicide. Joshita, a Junior Engineer with the Public Works Department (PWD – Housing), had been posted in Bongaigaon for nearly a year.
She found hanging in her rented apartment in Barpara, Bongaigaon, Assam on Monday. A suicide note recovered from the scene has sent shockwaves across the engineering and administrative sectors. In the note, Joshita directly named two senior officials—former Executive Engineer Dinesh Sharma Medhi and former SDO Aminul Islam—as responsible for severe mental harassment and pressuring her into unethical professional decisions.
According to her handwritten note, Joshita relentlessly coerced into clearing a contractor’s bill for the “MIN Stadium at Borsojgaon under Gossaigaon LAC,” despite major procedural lapses. She claimed the project, executed in collaboration with M/s Achetic Creations, lacked necessary architectural plans and documentation.
Joshita further alleged that the contractor, Rudra Pathak, did not employ a site engineer, leaving her solely responsible for execution and oversight. Despite repeated appeals for assistance, she was denied support. Additionally, she accused architect Debajit Sarma of submitting a flawed and incomplete estimate riddled with discrepancies—concerns she raised but ignored.
Although both Medhi and Islam had transferred recently—Medhi to the Nalbari NH Division and Islam to the Office of the Chief Engineer—they allegedly continued to pressure her from their new positions.
Following her death, Joshita’s mother lodged an FIR at the Bongaigaon Police Station, accusing the two officials of constant harassment that drove her daughter to take the extreme step. “She used to tell me about the unbearable work pressure. She mentally broken,” her mother shared with the media.
Bongaigaon police have since arrested both Medhi and Islam, confirming their involvement based on preliminary findings. The suicide note, now in police possession, expected to play a pivotal role in the investigation.
Joshita’s untimely death has once again exposed the deep-rooted issues of corruption, toxic work culture, and the urgent need for mental health support in government departments. Her body has sent for a post-mortem, and authorities have initiated a full-scale investigation into the circumstances surrounding the case.
