Patna: The family members of Brajesh Kumar Singh - a private road construction company engineer who was killed along with another engineer in Darbhanga district on December 26, 2016 - are living in fear.

The slain engineer's elder brother Braj Kishore Singh met the Dehri-sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Anwar Javed Ansari on Tuesday and submitted copies of threat letters that the family received by post on March 3 and March 28, respectively.

The family members have been asked not to pursue their demand for capital punishment in the engineers' double murder case. On March 7, a Darbhanga court had convicted 10 persons, including kingpins Santosh Jha and Mukesh Pathak, and awarded them a life term. The kin of Brajesh, a resident of Dehri-on-Sone in Rohtas district, however, told reporters they will appeal in the high court against the lower court verdict and demand harsher punishment for the convicts.

Braj Kishore, however, denied enmity with anybody in his neighbourhood. "Earlier, the family had not received any such threat. This is an attempt to dissuade the family from seeking harsher punishment for all the ten convicts in the engineers' murder case," the deceased engineer's kin told the police.

Expressing his anguish over the callous attitude of the local police, Braj Kishore, a petty contractor by profession, said that it was because of the police's negligence that the family received a threat letter for the second time. "We had informed the police soon after the first letter was found on March 9," he said.

The family members didn't rule out involvement of local gangs with connections to the People's Liberation Army allegedly led by Santosh Jha and Mukesh Pathak to extort extortion money from businessmen, contractors and professionals of the state. They also provided samples of handwriting of some suspects to ascertain the gangsters' identity.

Copies of the petition submitted to the SDPO have also been forwarded to the governor, chief minister, director-general of police, inspector-general (Patna zone), deputy inspector-general (Shahabad range), district magistrate and superintendent of police of Rohtas, seeking their intervention in providing security to the family. SDPO Javed Ansari said: "We are looking into the complaint. If needed, the family members will be given police protection."

Brajesh Kumar and Mukesh Kumar, who were hired by a private road construction company, were shot dead by two youths riding a motorbike when they had gone for site inspection under the jurisdiction of Bahera police station in Darbhanga district. The family members of the slain engineers had demanded speedy trial of the case. The Gurgaon based construction company was awarded the contract for construction of the 121-km Baruna-Rasiyari stretch of Darbhanga-Kusheshwarsthan highway at an estimated cost of Rs 770 crore. The dons - Mukesh Pathak and Santosh Jha- had allegedly demanded Rs 1 crore as extortion.