ROURKELA: A master technician of Rourkela Steel Plant was found dead with his head severed on the railway track between Pipe Plant and Hot Strip Mill (HSM) 2 of the plant here on Monday morning.
The deceased, 51-year-old Basudev Pradhan of Sector-4 locality, was employed with the heavy maintenance (Electrical) department of the steel plant. While there is still no clarity on the reason behind his death, trade union leaders, citing equal possibility of suicide, accident or foul play, have demanded a proper inquiry into the matter. They said his vehicle was not present nearby and the site where the incident took place is not usually used by employees to cross the tracks.
Tangarpali police reached the spot and seized the body for postmortem. Vice-president of INTUC-affiliated Rourkela Shramik Sangh, Nihar Das requested police not to make hurried attempts to dismiss it as a case of suicide as it would bar the victim’s family from claiming employment on compassionate ground.
“If the employee deliberately laid himself on the track to commit suicide, then how come the train driver concerned did not report the matter? There is equal possibility that he might have died by accident or his body was placed on the track after murder to make it appear like suicide,” Das said and urged the management to provide compassionate employment to any one of the eligible family members of the deceased.
While police are waiting for the postmortem report, sources claimed Pradhan was in financial distress after venturing into some business apart from his job. He had borrowed money from several persons.