BRT claims another life: Woman run over by bus

NEW DELHI: Another accident, another life lost and again in the BRT corridor. On Tuesday morning, 32-year-old domestic help Manju Devi was crushed under the wheels a low-floor DTC bus as she tried to cross the corridor near her Chirag Dilli home on her way to work.

“I was standing near the bus stop when I saw a DTC bus on route number 423 (from Khanpur to Mori Gate) brake abruptly. The victim was crossing the road and had just reached near the yellow barricades, about 400 metres short of the bus stop. The bus first hit her, then crushed her under the front wheel and even then the driver could not control the vehicle. The victim was dragged for some distance before the rear wheels crushed her head,” said Shahnawaz Khan, an eyewitness.

The accident sparked off violent protests. Locals first surrounded the bus, and then pelted stones, before assaulting driver Bal Kishan. According to an official from the Ambedkar Nagar police station, a case of causing death due to rash and negligent driving had been lodged against the driver.

“However, we have not yet taken him into custody because he is admitted at the AIIMS trauma centre hospital as a result of injuries sustained due to the beating.

According to our investigation, the victim was not crossing the road from the designated pedestrian crossing and when the bus driver saw her, he braked abruptly. As it was running on high speed, the bus spun out of control and swerved, crushing the victim in the process,” he said. He added that accidents on the corridor were frequent because of too few pedestrian crossings which encouraged jay walking.

“We find it very difficult to stop people from crossing the roads inappropriately because why would a person who needs to go to one place, walk a kilometre only to cross the road? Even the guards appointed at all bus stops can only do so much because managing the kind of crowd that this area witnesses is not possible. Also, the low-floor buses don’t have a chassis because of which they lose control easily if brakes are applied suddenly. The authorities should take note of all these factors and take some remedial action to prevent more such deaths,” said the official.

The victim’s body was sent to AIIMS and a postmortem was to be conducted on Wednesday. “We have traced and informed her family. Her husband works as a guard in one of the buildings nearby and they have three children,” said the official.

In a separate incident on Tuesday evening, four cars were involved in a pile up near the same spot after a Mahindra Scorpio rammed into two Maruti 800s and a Santro. However, no one was seriously injured in the accident.