‘Phoolan wali gaadi’ blamed for kid’s death
LUCKNOW: There is a steady flow of mourners to the Gosainpurwa residence of Vishvanath, an OBC whose five-year-old son Shiva was killed on Saturday after being hit allegedly by one of vehicles in the cavalcade of UP’s cabinet minister Om Prakash Rajbhar.
The tragedy has made them angry and they want action. They curse the ‘phoolan wali gaadi’ (flower bedecked vehicle) and hit out at the minister for not even caring to stop and rush the child to the nearest hospital.
The minister had gone to attend a function in OBC-Rajbhar dominated Behta-Gaurasinghpur village on Saturday evening and was returning when one of the vehicles in his cavalcade allegedly hit the child who was with his paternal aunt.
“Hamka toh yohi batawa gaya rahe ki phoolan wali gaadi maaris hai (I was told that it was a flower bedecked car that hit my grandson,” a distraught Jawahar Lal told Hindustan Times on phone from Gosainpurwa in Gonda, about 120 kilometers from the state capital.
People in the village whom HT contacted on phone claimed that of the three vehicles that were part of the minister’s cavalcade, at least one had lots of flowers on it hinting that it could have been the one in which the minister was sitting.
“There are eyewitnesses who say that the motorcade briefly slowed down after the accident before gathering speed,” Jai Prakash, one of the villagers who had gathered at the victim’s house told HT on phone.
“The accident may be unintentional but what about the insensitivity shown by the minister who left a child to die by the roadside,” he questioned.
The villagers are also angry at the police for not even attempting to stop the minister’s cavalcade despite being informed about the incident.
The FIR registered by Vishvanath mentions “mantriji ke kaafile ki ek gaadi (one of the vehicles in minister’s convoy)” as the killer vehicle.
“An FIR has been registered against unidentified persons for causing the death of a child. The FIR registered by the child’s father Vishvanath claims that a vehicle in the convoy of a minister hit his child who died due to injury. None has been named. All that the FIR states is a vehicle in ‘mantriji ka kaafila’ (minister’s motorcade) caused the accident,” Sadanand Singh, inspector Colonelganj police station said.
Rajbhar, whose backward dominated Soheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) is an ally of the ruling BJP in UP, has told his partymen that he came to know of the accident 50 kilometres away from the site.
“The minister wanted to return. He told me that perhaps the vehicle that ran over the child was not part of his motorcade. In any case, a probe has been ordered,” Shashi Pratap Singh, SBSP general secretary said on Sunday claiming that he had spoken to the minister, who remained unapproachable despite repeated calls.
Within hours of the incident chief minister Yogi Adityanath ordered an inquiry into the child’s death besides announcing a monetary compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of the deceased. But the gesture failed to pacify the kin of the deceased and the villagers who claimed that the police too went slow after coming to know of minister’s involvement in the accident.
“See legally there can’t be any case on the minister since he has already taken a plea that he wasn’t even aware of the accident and came to know about it later. He has also claimed that the vehicle that hit the child may not have been part of his cavalcade. His driver could be tried under section 304 (A) that is about causing death due to negligent driving,” said Rohit Kant, a criminal lawyer. A delegation of SBSP headed by state unit president Anand Mishra will soon call on kin of the boy to express the grief over the incident.
The incident comes two days after a farmer of Orai in Uttar Pradesh’s Jalaun district alleged that the state jail minister Jai Kumar Singh Jaiki’s cavalcade, comprising more than 35 vehicles, ran over his farm, ruining all the seeds he had sown a week back. Earlier this month, Rajbhar was in the news for telling parents who do not send their children to school that they would be locked up in police stations without food and water. range of small arms except the AK-47,” said General Jaswal, who headed the army’s infantry directorate before General Singh.
It was no secret that soldiers preferred AK-47s to INSAS rifles while carrying out counter-terrorism operations, said General Singh.