3 dead: Kin allege patrol vehicle caused accident
DELHI GATE ACCIDENT Families of the victims’ claim their scooter was either hit by a patrol van or another vehicle whose driver was being ‘shielded’ by the cops
NEW DELHI: The unusual sight of the bodies of three boys stacked on top of each other, rumours that a police van was chasing their scooter, and that CCTV cameras around the mishap spot had become defunct just a day before, culminated into an emotional outburst, leading hundreds of people to protest and seek a fair probe into their deaths.
Around 800 protesters, including family members, relatives and neighbours of the three boys, assembled at the Delhi Gate traffic intersection and blocked traffic for almost seven hours on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, as soon as they learnt about the boys’ deaths and the rumour that a police van was chasing their scooter before the mishap.
Protesters started gathering around 1am on Sunday, leaving senior police officers scrambling to arrange adequate reinforcements, as they were not prepared for the escalating situation. What proved tougher, however, was convincing the protesters that no police van or any foul play was involved in the road mishap, which claimed the lives of the three boys, a police officer said on the condition of anonymity.
According to the officer, the protesters were so influenced by the rumour that they were seeing everything as part of a conspiracy. “They started suspecting that footage from the CCTV cameras installed around the accident spot was deliberately deleted. The protesters dispersed only when the family members of the deceased boys were shown footage from a CCTV camera (seconds before the mishap) in which the three teenagers could be seen riding a scooter without helmets and no police or private vehicle following them,” the officer added.
Even as the normal vehicular movement was restored and the situation was brought to normal, resentment among protesters continued throughout Sunday and families of the dead teenagers – Osama Ahmed,18, Mohammad Saad,14 and Mohammad Hamza,15 – refused to believe the police’s accident theory.
Osama’s father Mansoor Ahmed claimed that according to him, the boys died either after being hit by a patrolling van that was chasing them for not wearing helmets, or by a private vehicle.
“Either a police van hit the scooter or the police are shielding the occupants of the private vehicle that rammed the scooter. Why did all CCTV cameras on that entire route stop working after November 29? It’s a conspiracy and we want justice,” Ahmed, who deals in automobile spare parts, said.
Another police officer said that apart from being shown the footage, the families of the dead boys were also informed that no patrolling van was in the vicinity of the mishap spot for almost an hour and the first van reached the spot only after a call informing the police of the accident was made.
Locals said that they would resume their protest if the police failed to probe the deaths fairly and provide justice to the aggrieved families. Considering the sensitive situation, police personnel were deployed around Turkman Gate where the three teenagers lived, the mortuary where the autopsy was conducted and the cemetery as well.
While Osama studied in a local madarsa, the other two were students at a private school in central Delhi. The three were related to each other.