Pune: Hinjewadi IT Firm Cited Ajit Pawar’s Death as Reason for Salary Delays, Claim Employees
Pune, 4th June 2026: Employees of a Hinjewadi-based IT firm that allegedly shut down abruptly after months of non-payment of salaries have claimed that the management repeatedly cited unusual reasons to justify delays, including telling staff that salary processing had been affected because a file was stuck in the finance department following the reported death of then finance minister Ajit Pawar in an air crash.
The claims surfaced on Wednesday after the arrest of Harshal Thakre, CEO of Noida-registered ThynkTech India OPC Ltd. Several former employees gathered at the Hinjewadi police station, alleging that they had neither received salaries nor recovered money paid to the company.
Many of the affected employees were fresh engineering graduates recruited through campus placement drives conducted across colleges in Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad and other cities. A woman employee from Latur said she joined the company after being selected during a placement drive last September but never received any salary. According to her, employees were given different explanations whenever they sought payment, including pending audits and delays in receiving funds from abroad.
“In January, the management claimed salaries were delayed because a file was pending with the finance department following Ajit Pawar’s death in an air crash,” she alleged. Pawar, former deputy CM who also held the finance portfolio in the state government died in a plane crash at Baramati on January 28.
The employees working from home were asked to deposit Rs 15,000 towards laptops, while salaries remained unpaid.
Former employees also alleged that the company had defaulted on payments to vendors and the owner of the office premises. Police said laptop suppliers had approached them with complaints of non-payment. According to police, the company had rented around 300 laptops at a monthly charge of Rs 2,000 per device but allegedly failed to clear the dues.
