NEW DELHI: In an attempt to raise their voice against the botched-up police investigation into the suspicious death of Saurabh Kumar, an engineer with the South Eastern Railway, his friends and alumni of the Birsa Institute of Technology and Science and college students here held a candlelight vigil and protest at Jantar Mantar on Sunday.
Saurabh (31) was found dead under mysterious circumstances at his railway quarters in Kharagpur on September 22. By the time his body was found, it was partially decomposed with his head found smashed.
Saurabh, who did his engineering at the Birsa institute at Sindri near Dhanbad, was working under the deputy chief material manager. Despite finding his body in a pool of blood, the police did not file an FIR for 10 days and claimed that he died of snakebite.
The Alumni Association of the institute along with students of Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University and many engineers launched the protest and demanded a CBI inquiry into Saurabh’s death. “We have also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for a CBI inquiry into the case as the police are doing a botched-up inquiry into the case and trying to save the accused,” Ranjan Gupta, one of the protestors leading the group, said.
A justice campaign by friends and family and social media campaign have finally drawn the attention of Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu into the matter. Prabhu has now ordered a probe into his death.
“Saurabh had intimated his family about the pressure he had been facing from the local mafia to pass a tender, to which he did not relent. According to his family, he had been threatened by a railway contractor recently and had been worried since then,” Gupta added.