Guwahati, Oct. 26: The family of Ranjan Das, the country’s youngest CEO in a multi-national company in India who died in Mumbai on October 21, today said they suspected foul play in his death.
They vowed to “unravel the truth” and, if necessary, seek judicial justice.
“I talked to my son on October 21 morning and he sounded fine. Then we get the shocking news at night that he is no more. There has been no communication from anyone in Mumbai. We were not even informed about his cremation. We have every reason to suspect foul play in his death. The real cause of Ranjan’s death must have been suppressed,” his 70-year-old mother, Malati, today said at her Hengrabari residence here.
Das, 42, who was the CEO and MD of SAP India Subcontinent, reportedly suffered a massive cardiac arrest at his Raheja Bay home in West Bandra in Mumbai. He is said to have collapsed and died after returning from the gym.
The grieving mother said her son was a “fitness freak” and it was very difficult to believe that he had suffered a cardiac arrest. “He always used to take advice from doctors even in case of minor ailments.”
She claimed that she and her youngest son Suniel had booked flight tickets to Mumbai on Thursday, a day after Ranjan’s death, but were “told by my daughter-in-law Rajashree not to bring Suniel to Mumbai”.
Efforts to contact Rajashree, Ranjan’s widow, failed. Ranjan is also survived by two sons, aged seven and two-and-a-half.
Suniel, who is the secretary of Darrang district unit of the state Congress committee, said: “We are contemplating seeking legal help to find out the exact cause of the death of Ranjanda.”
Ranjan’s father, late Khagendra Nath Das, was the deputy director in the directorate of industries and commerce, government of Assam.
Ranjan’s rise to the top in the corporate world is an awe-inspiring story. He studied at the Assamese-medium Dispur Government Junior Basic School and then at the Gopal Boro Government Higher Secondary School before shifting to Delhi Public School in Indore. He studied for a year at Hansraj College under Delhi University in Delhi before moving to Massachussets Institute of Technology and then the Harvard Business School, both in the US.
Before joining SAP India in July 2007, Das worked for big firms like Oracle and InterSystems Corporation in the US. He founded a company, Patkai Networks, named after the famous hill ranges of the Northeast, in Silicon Valley.
He is credited with taking SAP India’s business many notches ahead of its rivals in the country.
Anurag Barua, a family-friend now based in Washington DC, expressed shock over the untimely death of the young achiever. “Certainly, Ranjan was one of the most brilliant minds Assam has ever produced. He scaled peaks few of us thought ever existed. As a fellow-Assamese, he will be an eternal source of inspiration for generations to come,” he said in an e-mail to The Telegraph.
President of SAP, Asia Pacific Japan, Geraldine McBride, said in a statement, “SAP is deeply saddened by the news that our colleague Ranjan Das has passed away suddenly. This comes as a great shock to all of us within the SAP family and is felt profoundly by everyone of us.”
