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.

... contd.