Relatives of Dr Budhdeo Singh take out his body from Patna Medical College and Hospital on Monday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, May 30: Dr Budhdeo Singh would still have been alive had his leave been sanctioned.

“Bhudeo chacha had applied for leave four days ago so he could spend some time with his family in Patna. The application was turned down. He then talked to his wife on phone and told her that he would come in the first week of June after drawing his salary,” said Arun Kumar Singh, nephew of the slain doctor.

“In less than six months he would have retired and settled down in Patna with his family,” added Arun Singh, who works in a local college in Chhapra.

Dr Budhdeo Singh, 59, was known as an honest man who led a simple life. But, Arun Singh said, he had been apprehending a threat to his life for the last six months.

“He had written several times to the Gopalganj district administration requesting for security or a transfer. He had even gone to chief minister Nitish Kumar’s janata darbar twice with the same request. But nothing happened,” he said.

Arun Singh recalled that his uncle had often told him that the jail authorities were “hand-in-glove” with the inmates and that extra efforts were made to ensure certain prisoners were kept in good humour. “My uncle opposed many of the actions of the jail authorities,” he said.

Relatives of the slain doctor are pointing fingers at a jail official, who, they alleged, had connived with the criminals to eliminate Budhdeo Singh.

They pointed out that the jail was located 13km from the district headquarters but only eight to 10 constables were posted there against about 400 inmates. They questioned the wisdom of the jail authorities to allow the doctor to go to the prison alone.

Nityanand Singh, former mukhia of Naini village, the native home of the doctor, said Budhdeo was soft-spoken and honest. Vijayendra Singh, another villager, said Doctor Saheb was very popular in the village. “He was a man of no inhibitions and readily mixed with the villagers and the people,” he said.

Budhdeo Singh has two sons, Dharmendra Kumar Singh and Ramendra Kumar Singh, and three daughters — Nikki Singh, Alka Singh and Anuradha Singh, all of whom are married. One of his surviving brothers, Punyadeo Singh, is also a doctor who retired from the railways recently. His eldest brother, the late Satyadeo Singh, was a professor at Jagdam College who once represented Chhapra in Parliament during the ’80s.

Budhdeo Singh, a graduate from Darbhanga Medical College, passed out from the institution in 1977 and joined the government services the very next year. He served as medical officer in hospitals of various districts of the state and was posted as medical officer at the Gopalganj district jail for the last year-and-a-half.