Last month, the Mumbai-based daily DNA had launched a new ad campaign in Pune – a city where it has, or rather had, a subscriber base of more than 20,000 people. The tagline for the campaign – the essence of which was to convey that DNA is a young newspaper – was, “Not your father’s paper”.

If a marketing professional closely associated with the campaign is to be believed, the campaign – and the tagline too – apparently worked. By the end of the month, they added 8,000 new subscribers.

If employees of the newspaper were expecting some sort of appraisal following the spike in numbers, they were in for a not-so-pleasant surprise. On August 8, at around 6 in the evening, all 52 employees of the office were told that they need not come to work next day onward. “We were told by three people whom we hadn’t ever seen before to stop coming from the next day”, said an employee. According to eyewitnesses, people were told to either put in their papers or face termination.

Purportedly, there was no one from Human Resources (HR) or the Management Department present in office when this happened. The Resident Editor, Deepak Lokhande, wasn’t in office either. “When we asked for a formal closure or retrenchment notice and an official word from someone in the HR, we were asked to come to office at 11 in the afternoon”, informed a reporter who’s worked with the organisation for more than three years. “The next day, at around 4:30 in the evening, we were offered a severance package of seven days of salary of the current month and three months’ basic pay.”

According to another employee, their pleas to give them some time fell on deaf years, and they were categorically told to stop coming to office from August 14.

The news came in as quite a shock to most employees as just the previous month, employees were persuaded not to join a new English daily that’s set up shop in Pune. “All of us had got offers from this new newspaper but we were promised appraisals the next month as incentives for not jumping ship”, claimed a reporter.

Incidentally, journalists working with DNA, on condition of anonymity, have told Newslaundry that they were coerced – with baits of hefty appraisals – into signing an undated document, which stated that they were voluntarily exempting themselves from the Majithia Wage Board’s salary recommendations.  “We were made to believe that the Majithia Wage Board’s recommendations were not in our favour”, said a journalist working with DNA.

A marketing professional with them also told Newslaundry that the new subscription cheques, which were sent to the Mumbai office, have been sent back. The Pune edition of the newspaper, however, continues to get published, albeit with reports filed by Mumbai-based reporters. “Our reports are not being taken, and as of now we’ve not got any official confirmation on our fate”, said a correspondent. The Resident Editor, Lokhande, it is understood, has been accommodated in the online section of the publication in Mumbai. Lokhande refused to answer any of our queries.

Sudden retrenchments and closures, it must be mentioned, is not a new occurrence at DNA. In July, three reporters of their Delhi bureau were asked to leave without notice. This, according to sources, was part of a downsizing exercise. DNA’s Bangalore bureau was also shut down on August 12.

Yasmeen Shaikh, Head – Talent Acquisition & On-Boarding at Diligent Media Corporation Limited (DNA) told Newslaundry that she was “not in a position to comment”.

Meanwhile, reporters in the Pune bureau are still waiting for some sort of official intimation. “We go to office everyday, check our mails for some sort of communication from the Mumbai office, and read the papers.”

Anand Walunjkar contributed reporting from Pune. He can be contacted on Twitter at @anandwalu