#Engineer found dead in lift shaft’s pit

GHAZIABAD: A 52-year-old civil engineer employed with a private construction company was found dead at the site of a housing project in Loni on Wednesday morning, in a pit dug for the lift shaft of a nine-storey building.

The body of Raj Narayan Jha, who was from Madhubani in Bihar, was discovered by workers at the site, police said. The cops haven’t ruled out murder but said they will wait for the autopsy report before filing charges. Jha’s body had injuries on both legs, head and face.

Jha had put up in his company’s guesthouse at Shalimar Garden while working on the Loni project. The last person he spoke to on his cellphone was his wife, a call made at 9.30 pm on November 2, police said. A police officer said the guesthouse staff alerted his son-in-law Avdeesh Kumar, who lives in Crossings Republik, when Jha did not return.

It was Kumar who informed the cops on Wednesday. Police said his call came around 12.45 pm. “Jha’s relatives and colleagues searched for him for a day but failed to locate his whereabouts. On Wednesday, some workers who had climbed atop the nine-storey building spotted his body lying in a pit. Company workers told the police they had last seen him around 7.30 pm during a meeting at the site,” said Ghaziabad DSP Anil Kumar.

However, though Jha had been untracebale for over a day when his body was found, no missing complaint was filed at any of the four police stations in charge of areas in Loni and Shalimar Garden – Loni, Loni border, Sahibabad and Vijay Nagar. In his statement, Kumar said an employee at the construction company by the name of Anil Tiwari had called him on Wednesday to inform him about the discovery of Jha’s body.

T P Singh, a sub-inspector at Loni Border police station, said, “His body was found lying in a supine position. The lower portion of his left leg had broken off from the knee. His right leg was also fractured at the knee. Injury marks were seen on both thighs. There were injuries on the right side of his head and face as well. A clear picture about the cause of his death can emerge after the autopsy report.”