Journalist turned manager Smita Rao found hanging at home

Bangalore, November 28: An assistant manager with Infosys Ltd was found hanging in her apartment in a suburb here, police said Monday.

Smita Rao, 32, was found hanging Monday in her apartment in the northeast suburb of Geddelihalli. Rao, a former journalist, leaves behind her husband Rohit.

"Smita Rao was found hanging in her flat (E4) on the third floor of Mantri Splendour apartments. She was rushed to a private hospital but was declared dead. A case of unnatural death by hanging will be registered after we get the post-mortem report from the hospital," Hennur police station inspector G. Prabhakar told reporters.

According to Columbia Asia hospital general manager Jermy D’Souza, Smita was brought to the hospital in an ambulance from the flat but could not be treated as doctors found her dead when she was wheeled into the emergency ward.

“On receiving an emergency call from Mantri apartments at Geddelihalli, we rushed an ambulance to bring the victim at the earliest. Before our doctors could attend to her, she was found dead,” D’Souza said.

Smita, who joined Infosys in June 2010 was handling online content for the company’s official website, providing corporate updates and writing business stories and features.

Infosys did not respond to calls and its officials were unavailable for comment on the incident involving one of its employees.

Before shifting to the corporate world, Smita was deputy city editor at Bangalore Mirror, a popular tabloid in this tech hub, from July 2007 to September 2008 and a senior correspondent with The Times of India, Bangalore edition, from February 2004 to April 2007.

Prior to joining Infosys, she went to Milan, Italy, on a teaching fellowship for 10 months from October 2008 to July 2009.

In between, she worked as a television reporter with News 9, an English channel of the TV9 group.

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Rape case filed against Padma Shri awardee monk Kartik Maharaj

Agencies

June 28,2025

A rape case has been filed against Swami Pradiptananda, popularly known as Kartik Maharaj, a monk associated with the Bharat Sevashram Sangha’s Beldanga unit in Murshidabad, West Bengal. The 2024 Padma Shri awardee has been accused by a woman of repeatedly raping her over the past decade under the pretext of offering her a teaching job.

According to the FIR filed with Nabagram police, the woman said she first met Maharaj in December 2012, when he offered her a position at a school run by the ashram. She was accommodated at the school hostel in early 2013 but claims Maharaj began summoning her to a room on the fifth floor and raped her repeatedly. She further alleged that she was also raped at other ashram branches and was forced to undergo an abortion after becoming pregnant that same year.

The survivor said that on June 13 this year, two men claiming to be Maharaj’s associates assaulted her, threatened her to stay silent, and pushed her out of a vehicle near a correctional home after she tried contacting him again.

In her complaint, she also expressed concern that other women may have faced similar abuse. Maharaj has denied all allegations, calling them part of a conspiracy to damage his reputation. “Ask the women who work here — we treat them like mothers,” he said.

The complaint has triggered fresh political debate in the state, especially as it comes close on the heels of a high-profile gangrape case at South Calcutta Law College and last year’s rape and murder of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College — both of which have stirred public anger and political sparring between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP.

Police said an investigation is underway.

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