Ran from mob, crushed by truck
TRAGIC Private tutor was running for his life after being accused of kidnapping one of his students
A 25-year-old man — accused of kidnapping one of his students — was crushed under the wheels of a speeding truck while escaping a mob on Wednesday night.
Locals blocked traffic to protest the incident, causing traffic jam in parts of southeast Delhi. They were demanding the arrest of the men responsible for his death but senior police officers promised action and dispersed them.
The victim, Jagannath Sahu, lived in the Indira Camp slum in southeast Delhi’s Okhla. He used to earn a living by helping hundreds of slum children with their studies. Local residents claim Sahu taught at least a thousand students, with many of them coming from as far as Kalkaji and Jamia Nagar. Among those hundreds of students was a 20-year-old woman, whom Sahu was accused of kidnapping.
On Thursday afternoon, the woman had come to his house seeking help. A resident of the same slum, her house is a few hundred metres away from Sahu’s house. Sahu’s students said she reportedly stayed back for ‘extra classes’ while they left early. According to Sahu’s father, Ram Babu, at around 7.20 pm he offered to drop the woman to her house, along with his son.
But as soon as they reached the woman’s house, the father- son duo were allegedly beaten up by the woman’s parents and relatives. “They accused my son of abducting her. We were locked for at least two hours and beaten. They took away my cell phone,” said Ram Babu, who had stitches on his head.
Police said the woman’s relatives called them at about 9.15pm. Police officers took the father-son duo to the Okhla police station, where some people had assembled. “I was giving my statement to the police, when I saw some men calling my son outside. As he went out, I saw him running away from those men outside the police station. They were chasing him,” said Ram Babu.
Sahu, while running away from the mob, came under the wheels of a speeding dumper on the Okhla main road, said eyewitnesses.
He was rushed to the AIIMS Trauma Centre where he was declared brought dead. Minor protests erupted outside the police station but the protesters dispersed in less than an hour.
On Friday morning, when a few local politicians visited Sahu’s parents, the protesters gathered again — this time to block the traffic. The woman’s family had locked their house and supposedly fled to their relatives house in Gurgaon.
DCP(southeast) MS Randhawa said the situation was brought under control soon.
Late Thursday night, police arrested Hanif, the dumper driver who had fled the spot after the accident. Acting on a separate FIR filed against the woman’s relatives, police have arrested Raju and Manoj, cousins of the woman.
Sahu was in his third-year of graduation. The woman had failed in Class 12. Her father grinds wheat for a living.