Prime accused in whistleblower's murder re-arrested

Patna -- A prime accused in the 2003 murder of engineer Satyendra Dubey, who blew the whistle on corruption in the national highways project in Bihar, has been arrested three weeks after he gave police the slip.

Uday Paswan was arrested in Gaya, about 100 km from here, Thursday night. "A special police team raided his house on a tip-off and arrested him," Gaya Superintendent of Police A.K. Jain said.

He had escaped Dec 15 from police custody when he was being taken to court from Patna's Central Beur Jail. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team arrested him in 2005.

Dubey was in charge of the Bihar segment of the Golden Quadrilateral roads project that aims to link the four corners of the country through a network of modern highways. Dubey was killed in Gaya town, about 100 km from Patna on Nov 27, 2003, after he wrote to the Prime Minister's Office about corruption in the project.

It was suspected that a contractor's mafia killed Dubey. In his confidential letter that got leaked, Dubey spoke of large-scale pilferage of funds by higher-ups. But the CBI claimed that his murder was the result of a roadside robbery and not connected to his blowing the whistle.

Dubey's younger brother Dhananjay Dubey had last month alleged the CBI was trying to save the main culprits behind the murder and making it out to be a case of simple robbery. He alleged that a nexus of corrupt officials and contractors were behind the murder.