Junior engineer had told police of threat calls

The complaint mentions the mobile phone numbers from which the calls were made on April 9 and April 22. Lalji Shukla,Varanasi DIG,said,“The police tried to identify the caller but no breakthrough was made. Attempts are on to trace the caller. Investigation is on.”

G S Dixit,UPRNN project manager and the engineer’s immediate boss,said Singh received the threat calls from two numbers,but both times the caller was the same. He told Singh that he would face dire consequences if he did not pay Rs 5 lakh. The caller identified himself as Rajesh Kumar alias Tunnu Dubey from Ghazipur. Dixit said that since Singh’s family is based in Sultanpur,he first complained at the office of the Sultanpur SP on April 22. “The next day he went to Cantonment police station in Varanasi with me and lodged a complaint there too.” The police claimed to have put both the mobile numbers on surveillance,but could not trace the caller.

Today,the police deployed two armed constables at the UPRNN office in Varanasi and a gunman was provided to Dixit. Policemen were also deployed at the hospital where Singh is being treated. “I am going to give the names of three more engineers to the police,requesting for security for them,” Dixit said.

Singh is in the ICU at a local hospital where the doctors want to keep him under observation for 72 hours. Two contractors,Veer Bahadur and Mukul Singh,who were also injured are in the same hospital and their condition is stable. Two unidentified men forced their way into Singh’s office and opened fire,injuring the three men. Cantonment SHO Vinod Kumar Mishra said the motive was not clear,“but it seems that rivalry among contractors was the reason behind the attack. The assailants first fired at contractor Veer Bahadur and shot at the engineer when he tried to hide under the table”.