Byju’s employee shares tearful video: ‘Help me or else I will have to end my life’

After its founder Byju Raveendran broke down in public two days back, Akansha Khemka, a Byju’s employee, broke down on social media while narrating her travails if she was forced to exit Byju’s. Marked for lay-off, Khemka has been working with the edutech company for the past one and a half years as an academic specialist.

In a tearful video posted on LinkedIn, a networking digital platform for working professionals, the young Byju’s employee said that she was the sole breadwinner of her family and she will have to suffer untold miseries if she is forced to leave the company.

Alleging that the company has not paid her variables and leave encashment and instead has asked her to put in her paper immediately, Khemka suggested in the caption of her video that Byju’s has been indulging in all kinds of frauds, “including employees and customers”.

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The distraught employee has also appealed to the government to save her and other employees from Byju’s “toxic work culture”.

“I request that our government please help me and other employees escape this toxic work culture. Byju’s is committing fraud from all sides, including employees and customers,” she said in the caption of her video.

She said that she has an ailing husband and loans to repay and wondered if she is not paid salary from the next month how she would survive.

Khemka also posted a message on LinkedIn again appealing to the government to intervene and saying that if the government failed, she might end her life. “I want support from the government please help me out and give justice to me in this crucial situation. Please help me out. If there is no way out after this post then I have to end my life.”

The shocking video of the employee, who in a desperate bid is trying to salvage her career with the trouble-torn company, surfaced two days after Byju’s founder broke down in public while talking to various people including friends and investors.

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Raveendran is currently in Dubai and is seeking fresh equity infusion of US$1 billion into Byju’s from Middle Eastern investors. But, according to media reports, it is in limbo.

The crisis-ridden edutech startup’s downslide began last year, on mounting losses, after Raveendran failed to pay $40 million in interest payment on a $1.2 billion loan and instead sued his US lender. Byju’s has laid off hundreds of its employees in the past one year or so.

Raveendran began his career as a tutor in Kerala and went on to establish one of the most sought-after edutech companies both by students and investors alike, valued at $22 billion, on the last count in 2022.