LUCKNOW: A day after 27 people were killed when the tractor-trolley they were travelling in fell into a pond, the bodies reached Kortha village in Ghatampur of Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur Dehat and a police officer was suspended on Sunday.
The station house officer (SHO) of Saadh police station, which was nearest to the accident site, was suspended for “dereliction of duty”. The tractor-trolley driver is on the run. In the wake of frequent road accidents, the state government has ordered district administrations to run a 10-day drive against the use of tractor-trolley to ferry people. The circular issued by the government says that those found flouting the rules would be slapped with a penalty of Rs 10,000.
According to Kanpur DM Vishak G, the Saadh police station SHO was suspended for dereliction of duty as the accident spot was near Bhadeuna, barely 1km from the police station, but the SHO reached there after about an hour.
According to eyewitnesses, the tractor-trolley was being driven at a high speed despite requests by passengers to slow down, ADGP (Kanpur zone) Bhanu Bhaskar told mediapersons. “Subsequently, the driver lost control and it overturned. The women and children came under the trolley,” he said. The tractor-trolley was on its way to Ghatampur after the passengers attended a ‘mundan’ ceremony at the Chandrika Devi temple in Unnao.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath visited the survivors at the Halet hospital in Kanpur. He also met bereaved families at Kortha village, which is 4-5km from the accident site. “It is tragic incident. The government, in order to stop such accidents, has been running many awareness programmes from time to time. I had appealed yesterday that road safety should be a subject of priority for us,” Yogi said. Kortha village sunk into tears as the dead bodies arrived after post-mortem on Sunday.