A murder would mean that the CBI can detain a few persons and can only hold the district police (SP in this case) responsible for negligence in not providing security to Pandey.

But if it is suicide, Sitamarhi SP Chhatranil Singh is in for serious trouble. An abetment to suicide case under Section 306 of IPC can be registered against him, his reader and a constable, along with some others. SP Chhatranil Singh, however, refused to comment, saying he was “unwell”.

The IPC says if any person commits suicide, whoever “abets the commission of such suicide”, shall be punished with imprisonment for up to 10 years, and shall also be liable to fine.

The Express investigation at Sitamarhi showed that the DM’s office had forwarded Pandey’s request for security twice (in May 2008 and June 2009). It was up to the SP to ensure that Pandey’s request was met.

Incidentally, the 57 people who were recently given security cover in Sitamarhi included not one engineer.

It is also learnt that the district security committee, which decides on giving security to a person, has not met for one and a half years. A police officer confirmed that a constable named Shashi — though transferred out of Sitamarhi six months ago — was “at the service of his SP” in grabbing Pandey by the collar when the engineer demanded security a month ago. Now that the CBI has taken over the case from the state police — and taken a statement from IO Rita Kumari — it has to examine several key factors:

The murder theory

• Yogendra Pandey was at loggerheads with contractors. This is established by the fact that he was beaten up by Vats Constructions contractor Kishore Singh and his men on June 6. Pandey had blacklisted the company, which meant Vats was set to lose a security deposit of Rs 75 lakh with the Government. However, the blacklisted company did not stand to retrieve the security deposit after the engineer’s death. Had he lived, the company would still have had the right to appeal to get the money.

• Another company, Rajendra Singh and Brothers, awarded a Rs 22-crore contract, could not meet deadline and feared blacklisting. The company contractor Tunna Singh is under suspicion.

• Another company, owned by one Madhur K Singh, is also under scanner as a Rs 6 lakh fine was imposed on it by the engineer for not meeting deadline.

• Why the collectorate building? It is the tallest building (45 feet) in the area and the killer/s may have persuaded Pandey to go to the top floor for a “reconciliation” talk. They may have incapacitated him by hitting him with a blunt object and then thrown him down to make it look like suicide.

Supporting this theory, both postmortem reports show brain injury above his right temple. Also, the fact that he plummeted on an almost vertical trajectory, indicated he was unconscious when he was thrown. A jump would have resulted in the body landing at least 10 feet away the building.

• Was it a collective conspiracy by unscrupulous contractors? Pandey was reputed to be an honest man. Some contractors might have hatched a plan to eliminate him to “muscle or bribe” their way to easy payments .

Why it could be suicide

• Pandey was under a lot of pressure and was allegedly disturbed for a fortnight. He might have chosen the collectorate building to embarrass the police.

• His slippers and wrist watch were placed at a distance from the railings. This can be attributed to religious beliefs — he was a Brahmin — and a symbolic removal of worldly shackles. But he did not remove his sacred thread.

• The handwriting in the ‘suicide note’, found from his trouser pocket matched his, although his family denies it, claiming that he was not given to writing in English.