Mystery shrouds Panipat refinery engineer's death
New Delhi   06-Jun-2011

Even six days after the death of Anupam Ujjwal Tiru, an electrical engineer with the Panipat refinery, mystery continues to shroud the incident.

An alumnus of BIT-Mesra and son of a retired judge, Tiru had been working as senior electrical engineer with the refinery for the past three years. His body was fished out of the water reservoir on the refinery premises on May 31.

He reported for the work on May 30 at 8 pm for his 12-hour night shift. However, he was reported missing at 10 pm.

After attempts to contact him on his mobile phone and the official walkie-talkie proved futile, senior engineers sent a team to his house, where his landlords denied having any knowledge about Tiru. The computerised check-in-system at the refinery showed that Tiru had not left the refinery.

The attendant at the water reservoir, which collects water from the Delhi parallel canal for refinery operations, reported that he had found a pair of trousers, two mobile phones, a walkie-talkie, helmet and wallet of Tiru.

Senior officials at the refinery reported the matter to the police and called for divers at 12:30 am. His body was fished out at 2 am.

Sources confided that there was nothing to suggest that the engineer had committed suicide or was murdered as the evidence collected thus far stated otherwise. His colleagues had told the police that there were no signs of any depression in Tiru before the incident.

District police chief Pankaj Nain denied that Tiru had reported against the oil mafia and was killed by them. Nain said Tiru was posted in the electrical wing and had nothing to do with the oil operations. There were neither any signs of struggle nor any injury marks on the body that pointed that Tiru had been murdered. There is nothing to conclude that it was murdered.

However, sources in the refinery said it was unlikely that Tiru could have gone to the reservoir to take a bath as there were a number of bathrooms available in the refinery.

Doctors at the Civil Hospital, who had conducted the postmortem, said it had been found that Tiru’s lungs had inhaled water, which suggested that he was alive when he entered the waters.

Nain said the tissue collected from his vital organs had been sent for chemical examination to ascertain weather he was under any intoxication. The details of his mobile phone were also being scrutinised.

The police had so far been dealing with the incident as per the provisions of Section 174 of the CrPC, but if some evidence came out from the chemical examination report, action as per the law would be initiated, Nain said.