A railway engineer in Bihar has been suspended and booked for trying to illegally sell off a vintage steam engine as “scrap”, a senior official said on Tuesday.

According to Alok Agrawal, DRM of Samastipur Division under East Central Railway, an FIR was registered on the previous day against seven persons, including the engineer Rajiv Ranjan Jha, at Banmankhi in Purnea district.

The matter involves a metre gauge engine stationed in Purnea for public display which Mr Jha was caught trying to get dismantled on December 14 with a gas cutter which was being handled by helper Sushil Yadav.

When a sub-inspector deployed at the RPF outpost, MM 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.

Mr Jha also wrote a memo confirming the same to Mr 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 Mr Jha was armed with, was fake.