Mumbai/Calcutta, July 12: A 30-year-old Air India engineer from Dum Dum today hanged himself at his quarters in a Mumbai suburb, apparently because of his failure to secure a transfer to Calcutta.

Airline sources suggested a link between the end-May Air India engineers’ strike and the misfortunes of Ritwik Bhattacharya, who was found hanging from the ceiling fan by wife Toli.

Mumbai police sources said the aircraft maintenance engineer had been trying to get a transfer to Calcutta because his parents were ill but was transferred to Goa in June.

He had returned to the airline staff quarters at Kalina, where he lived during his Mumbai posting, to take his wife and six-year-old daughter back with him to Goa. Bhattacharya left behind a note saying no one should be held responsible for his death.

Air India engineers in Calcutta who knew him said Bhattacharya, who had been posted to Mumbai in 2007, had been transferred to Goa in a “temporary outstation posting” that would normally have been for just 15 days. “These postings used to be of a month’s duration, but the engineers’ union had pressured the airline into shortening them to 15 days,” an engineer said.

“However, the All India Aircraft Engineers Association was de-recognised after the May 26 strike, and the authorities abruptly extended all temporary outstation postings to one year.”

The government could crack down so hard on the Air India engineers because the timing of their strike — within days of the Mangalore air crash that killed 158 people —was seen as insensitive and robbed them of any possible public sympathy. The union, though, has won back recognition after negotiations.

“Bhattacharya had been trying to get a transfer to Calcutta for a long time. After he was told the posting in Goa was for one full year, he was deeply upset,” an Air India engineer in Calcutta said.

Air India officials in Mumbai refused comment. An official in Calcutta said: “Several engineers were transferred to various outstations.”