/usr/sbin/dpkg-remove is in dlocate 1.02+nmu3.
This file is owned by root:root, with mode 0o755.
The actual contents of the file can be viewed below.
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 | #! /bin/bash
# dpkg-hold  --  command line tool to flag package(s) as held.
#
# by Craig Sanders, 1998-10-26.  This script is hereby placed into the 
# public domain.
#
# BUGS: this script has absolutely no error checking.  this is not good.
if [ -z "$*" ] ; then
	echo "Usage:"
	echo "      dpkg-deinstall <package...>"
	exit 1
fi
for i in $@ ; do
	echo "$i	deinstall"
done | dpkg --set-selections
 |