Railway Engineer Killed for Fighting Corruption? Suresh Prabhu Calls for Probe

His body which had turned blue and was partially decomposed, was was found with his head smashed.
Saurabh Kumar, an engineer with the railways, was found dead at his railway quarters in Kharagpur on September 22. Photo: Twitter ‏@TimesNow
Saurabh Kumar, an engineer with the railways, was found dead at his railway quarters in Kharagpur on September 22. Photo: Twitter ‏@TimesNow

Saurabh Kumar, 31, was found dead at his railway quarters in Kharagpur on September 22. His body which had partially decomposed  was found with his head smashed. Despite finding his body in that state and a lot of blood around the body, the police did not file an FIR for the next ten days.

A justice campaign by friends and family, and a social media campaign has finally drawn the attention of the railway minister, Suresh Prabhu.

According to reports, the post-mortem report was inconclusive.

He was an engineering graduate from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Sindri near Dhanbad and was working under the deputy chief material manager.

Reports say that he had the authority to pass tenders for scrap metal sale and railway works. He was set to get married in a few months.

According to reports, he was recently pressured by local mafia to pass a tender. Saurabh did not relent. According to his family, he had been threatened by a railway contractor recently and had been worried about it since then.

The local police, reportedly, claimed that he died of a snake bite. His brother, Bipin Kumar, wrote a letter to the police requesting a proper investigation into the engineer's death.  The police seems to have overlooked the smashed face, missing mobile phone and a large amount of blood spatter at the scene.

His death is a reminder of IIT-graduate Satyendra Dubey, an IES officer with the Golden Quadrilateral project, who was killed in 2003. He was shot dead for exposing financial irregularities and suspending engineers who were working in tandem with road mafia in Gaya, Bihar.

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