In an incident reflecting the plight of Indian’s returning home following imposition of tougher H1B processing rules by the United States of America, a house maker and mother of two who was depressed after their family was forced to return to India last month, committed suicide here at Alkapuri colony in Puppalaguda on Thursday. According to Narsingi police, Reshma (39), wife of Sanjeev Sharma (41) hung herself to a fan at their residence when her husband and two children went out to get their laptop repaired.
Sanjeev Sharma a native of Faridabad in Uttar Pradesh married Reshmi in 2003. Sharma has been working with Bank of America in the USA for last ten years. They have two sons aged 13 and 11. Only recently Sharma’s application for extension of H1B Visa was rejected. Sharma’s fervent appeals to the US authorities that education of his children will be affected by the sudden change of place, have been ignored. The dejected family returned to Hyderabad and is working at the Raheja IT Park.
“My wife was very disturbed when she came to know about the status of my work permit. While she wanted to return to our native state either in Faridabad or Noida, I found a job here,” a shell shocked Sharma told police. Police who booked a case of suicide, have found no suicide note in the possession of Reshmi and are reportedly did not accept the Visa issue as the main reason for Reshmi’s death and are investigating other leads.
“Recently there are many cases of non extension of work permits in the USA, particularly from firms in the Midwest. Many of the returned IT professionals have applied for new work permits in April 2017 and are keeping their fingers crossed. The process of lottery has begun and there will be many more broken hearts by the end of the month,” Krishna Reddy a Visa consultant located in Begumpet here said adding that there are other avenues open for the IT experts and there is no need to get depressed.
Published 05 May 2017, 06:27 IST