An office assistant and security guard were found stabbed to death in the Bangalore office of Indian firm FoxMandal Little on 26 July.
The bodies of 27-year old office assistant Shubankar Das and 34-year old security guard Dasharath were discovered in one of Fox Mandal's four buildings in Primrose Street. Both had been stabbed repeatedly and found in a pool of blood early Sunday morning by another firm security guard from a separate building. Police are still unsure as to the motive behind the attacks, but were speculating earlier that the perpetrators may have been seeking confidential files.
Bangalore partner N. L. Mitra said that lawyers at the firm received news of the murders early morning. "We were informed in the morning at around 9am and then we went there," he said. "None of us know the background to the story. We don't know of any suspects. Nothing was broken or stolen, so naturally that's what it is. We have no idea; we're actually in the dark."
The firm said it will be cooperating with investigations, meanwhile the Bangalore office will operate as usual - including the building where the bodies were found.
"We have four offices in the street and will be operating as usual. The police have given us clearance, expect in small part [of the office], to work in the same building," said Mitra.
Meanwhile, the firm is hitting the headlines for very different reasons after admitting it had not paid a number of its Delhi-based lawyers their salaries due to late payment from some overseas clients.
The firm said that it was forced to delay payments to July because around 70% of its clients had not payed their bills. A source at the firm said they were looking at financing options from different sources, since unlike other jurisdictions Indian firms cannot rely on banks for funding. “It’s a common occurrence; a lot of companies in India also face this problem. The difference is we’re being transparent about it. A lot of firms have cut back in India and some have asked people to leave but in our case we didn’t do any such thing. It’s not a case where there isn’t work; we have a lot of work, but it’s just that the bill has been raised and clients haven’t paid. Buy August it should be cleared up,” the source said.
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