In an eye-opening development which has drenched Pune’s IT corridors, at least 500 IT engineers, employees and interns were laid off as ThynkTech India OPC Pvt Ltd, a Noida-registered IT company, shut down its divisional branch in Hinjewadi without any prior notice on April 22.
The sudden closure of hundreds of young professionals (most of them freshers) has now resulted in the detention of the company's CEO and a police investigation into cheating, salary non-payment, and misappropriation of funds.
CEO Detained, Police Case Registered
The Hinjewadi Police detained CEO Harshal Thakre of Nashik late on Tuesday night and brought him to Pune for questioning. A case was registered under Sections 316 (criminal breach of trust) and 318 (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) against Thakre, the company’s training and development head, and HR head. The senior police inspector Balaji Pandhare confirmed the detention and said, “We will question him about his involvement in the shutting down of the company and his intention behind the move."
The Recruitment Scam
According to employees and police investigators, the company undertook large-scale recruitment drives throughout 2025, hiring software engineers, fresh graduates and interns from small towns in Maharashtra. The company was working for third-party clients, and trained employees in technologies such as Java, Python, full-stack development, and AI/ML integration.
But the business model seems to have been built on a dubious foundation. Many employees said that the company asked for a security deposit of ₹15,000 from each new recruit under the guise of issuing laptops. But so many employees never received the laptops despite paying the deposit.
Assistant Police Inspector Sandip Vangnekar, who is investigating the case, said: “They told us that the company took a deposit of ₹15,000 from each of them for issuing laptops. They have not received their salaries for the past two months. They were duped of ₹11.25 lakh. We expect more employees to approach us.”
Unpaid Salaries and Bounced Cheques
The company built trust by paying salaries and intern stipends on time. But problems began in February 2026 when salaries were not credited on the usual dates. When employees asked the CEO for clarification, he told them it was due to an "internal audit" and promised payments would be released between February 25 and 28. Those deadlines passed.
For the employees, fresh dates were given March, April 20, April 29, April 30 but the dues would not be paid. Some were issued cheques that later bounced. Thakre, in one particularly alarming instance, informed his bank that his cheques were lost on April 29 in what employees see as a premeditated effort to prevent them from depositing payments.
The Aftermath
The company operated from a rented space in Hinjewadi's Garage Imperial Rise building. The property owner locked the office when rent payments were not made, all operations were stopped.
The Forum for IT Employees (FITE) has taken up the issue. Pavanjeet Mane, who heads FITE, told The Indian Express that employees have not been paid salaries since January. “The company started in August last year. Initially, it paid the salaries, but no one has received a salary since January. The owners kept giving new dates every time they came to them for salary. But they never kept their word," he said. FITE estimates that the total workforce affected could be in the range of 700 to 1,000 employees, including three batches of trainee interns.
Wider concern in Pune's IT sector
ThynkTech is the fifth IT company in Pune to shut down in the past eight months. According to FITE, about 4,000 to 5,000 IT professionals have lost their jobs in this period. Three of the five firms are from the Hinjewadi IT hub and the rest are from the Viman Nagar-Kharadi IT hub.
Human Cost
It has been a big blow for many impacted employees. A 24-year-old engineering graduate from Jalna, hired through campus placement, said he was promised a ₹15,000 stipend during training and a ₹5.5 lakh annual package upon confirmation. He paid the ₹15,000 laptop deposit but never received the laptop or any salary.
Pragati, a ThynkTech employee, expressed a common fear among the affected freshers: “We can’t even put our company’s name on our CV because it doesn’t count as work experience. Who will give us a job?" The 22-year-old intern from Nandurbar who was desperate for a job had paid a deposit after clearing an online interview. "I am poor and have no support, but I paid the deposit," he said.
What next?
Police and labour department investigations are ongoing. The Deputy Labour Commissioner has confirmed receiving complaints and has begun a review of the matter. For now, hundreds of employees remain in limbo—waiting for their salaries, their deposits, and answers.
