The TOI of 16^th November 2008 reported in its front page yet another CEO who was murdered by his sacked employee. The CEO was the owner of an American firm, an Indian citizen and alumnus if IIT-Kanpur called Sid Agarwal. His company, Si Port manufactured semi-conductors and the laid off worker, the murderer, in this case was a Chinese American by the name Jing Hua. Jing is 47 years old and was the lead test engineer. Jing and Si Port were of the same age. Sid Agarwal was brilliant as per his academic reports and an entrepreneur to the core according to his friends and colleagues. His enterprise comprised of his ability to set up a new company every five years because he would get bored with his old company.

Sid Agarwal’s habit, therefore, sunk a company every five years as he left an enterprise to embark on some new shores. How much of the society’s wealth did he waste by repeatedly setting up new companies and discontinuing old ones? What did Sid do with the money of the wound up companies?

What did Sid do with the What happened to the workers from who each time Sid wanted commitment and full dedication and then left them high and dry?

Jing was the lead engineer in the testing division. He was thus in a good position to know of the company’s fortunes and in his mind he must have known of the company’s secure future even as meltdown happened elsewhere. Jing must have known the order books and kept tabs on the inventories because of his position in the testing department. Yet, he was told that Sid was winding up the company and laid him off.

Jing, knowing his company’s financial soundness and his indispensability for the CEO must have taken loans for housing, to buy a car, or to get his children into best educational institutes. Yet all of this came crashing down the day Sid decided to fire him. Jing knew that Sid was running away with the money. So Sid was shot dead.

When Vijay Mallya and Naresh Goel say that they are facing a downturn and ruin thousands of employees’ lives, do they ever compromise on their own lifestyles? When Jindals who have made super profits as steel prices soared and use such profits to acquire large tracts of land from the farmers assuring them that they will be given jobs, assured of share in the company and also get more payment as production starts and then postpones production to run away with the money and leave more than 40,000 households on the anvil of economic ruin, who is the real murderer?