Railway engineer in Bihar tries to sell vintage steam engine as scrap, suspended

A railway engineer in Bihar was suspended on Tuesday after he tried to illegally sell a vintage steam engine as ‘scrap’. An FIR was also registered against the engineer Rajiv Ranjan Jha and six other persons in Purnia district.

AK Lal, the divisional security commissioner at Samastipur Railway division, told news agency ANI that a team was formed to arrest the accused and recover the material.

Alok Agrawal, DRM of Samastipur Division under East Central Railway said strict action will be taken against the accused. “It's is an exceptional case, railway works on trust but someone broke it,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.

The matter involves a metre gauge engine stationed in Purnia for public display which Jha was caught trying to get dismantled on December 14 with a gas cutter with the help of one Sushil Yadav.

When a sub-inspector deployed at the RPF outpost, M M Rehman, came to enquire, the engineer brandished a letter claiming that the Divisional Mechanical Engineer had ordered that scrap material from the engine be taken to the diesel locomotive shed nearby.

Jha also wrote a memo confirming the same to Rehman before leaving the spot with scrap material laden on a pick up van.

The lid was blown off the racket a day later when RPF personnel Sangita brought to the notice of her superiors that the scrap had not reached the diesel shed.

Further investigation revealed that no order for transportation of scrap had been issued and the letter which Jha was armed with, was fake.

The police are still trying to trace the material.