That the most serious roadblocks on the Golden Quadrilateral are in Bihar and Jharkhand was underlined once again when a senior engineer of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) who had complained against allegedly corrupt contractors was shot dead by unidentified assailants early this morning at Gaya. Satyendra Dubey, an IIT Kanpur graduate in his mid-30s, was supervising construction of the Prime Minister?s dream project in the Koderma division in Jharkhand and had been recently promoted as a deputy general manager.Dubey had a reputation for being an upright and honest official. According to the FIR filed by his brother, this probably cost him his life. Gaya Superintendent of Police Sanjay Singh, also a classmate of Dubey at IIT, said the engineer had just been appointed as project director in Koderma and was asked by the NHAI to taken charge at the earliest. But NHAI officials here said such an order had not yet been passed though there was every likelihood of him being posted there. He worked in Koderma as a project manager till August when he was transferred to Gaya. During his tenure, he got the contractor of the project to suspend three of his engineers after exposing their mishandling of funds. According to the FIR, Dubey had been facing several threats following his stern action. Dubey had even written to the NHAI and to the Prime Minister?s Office detailing the financial irregularities in the project, and this may have irked some, said Singh. Recently Dubey took a departmental test and was promoted as deputy general manager, which made him eligible to take charge as project director. Since there was no project director?s post in Gaya, he was likely to be posted to Koderma soon. The police suspect someone who found it inconvenient to have Dubey as the director eliminated him. Meanwhile, NHAI has rushed in senior officials from Varanasi and Gorakhpur to take stock of the situation and assist the local police in investigations. Dubey had arrived at Gaya railway station from Varanasi around 3 am today. However, he did not find his driver at the station and called up his home only to learn that the vehicle had apparently developed some mechanical problem. According to NHAI officials here, Dubey asked his driver to wait at home while he took a rickshaw back. But he did not reach home and the worried driver apparently went out looking for him, only to find Dubey lying dead near A P colony.
