|
Indian CEO killed by sacked worker
WSN Network
SILICON VALLEY:
Less than two months after the managing director of Italian firm
Graziano's Indian subsidiary was lynched in Noida by sacked workers,
IIT-educated Sid Agrawal, the CEO of a US semiconductor company, was
shot dead by a laid-off worker in California.
Police are
searching for Jing Hua Wu, 47, who worked as a lead product test
engineer for the four-year-old firm, SiPort, till a few days ago
when he was laid off. Wu is also reported to have shot SiPort's
vice-president of operations, Brian Pugh, and a woman whose identity
is withheld. It is not clear if Wu was retrenched because of the
economic slowdown.
Investigators
are trying to find out if this led him to kill teh company's top
management. A massive manhunt is on for Wu, who is reported to have
driven off in a silver SUV.
According to a
report in the San Jose Mercury newspaper, Friday's violent scene
erupted just before
4 pm. Police say
Wu reached SiPort's offices and began shooting.
Agrawal was an
electrical engineeer who graduated from IIT Kanpur in 1974. He moved
to the US
and did his MS from Southern Illinois University and MBA from the
University of Chicago.
He was all set
to visit IIT-K next month for the 35th reunion of his batch. He was
excited at the prospect of meeting his batchmates, said Kripa
Shanker, former deputy director of the institute. In a tragic
coincidence, L K Chaudury, the slain CEO of Graziano India, was also
from IIT-Kanpur.
Agrawal became
an entrepreneur after working with leading tech companies such as
Intel, Bell Labs and Adobe. Abhay Bhushan, president of the IIT-K
alumni association, described him as a passionate entrepreneur. Each
time he got bored, he started a new company. There’s so much to
learn he would say, Bhushan said. Agrawal is survived by wife Asha
and two sons.
SiPort, which
was Agrawal’s fourth or fifth venture, is a small firm specialising
in developing digital radio semiconductors.
19 November
2008
|
Read Also