9 injured as bus hits pavement dwellers in Delhi

New Delhi, Jan 10 (PTI) Nine people, including a 6-year-old boy, were injured on Tuesday after a cluster bus rammed into a taxi and hit pavement dwellers on Rohtak road in central Delhi, police said.

The injured were identified as Kala Devi (65), Sunita (35), Aarti (30) and Aryaman (6), Mangat Ram (60), Chand Khan (23), Anjali and Asha Devi — all of whom stayed in shanties erected on the pavement. A bus passenger, Ramesh, was also injured, they said.

The police had earlier inadvertently mentioned that the child injured in the incident was 3-year-old.

The incident took place when the bus driver lost control of the vehicle on the Nangloi-Old Delhi railway station route after which it rammed into a taxi and hit the pavement dwellers while going towards Liberty Cinema from Kamal T-point.

Some of the passengers, who were inside the bus, managed to get down unhurt and left the spot after the accident, a senior police officer said.

It is being alleged that brakes of the offending vehicle failed leading to the incident, but police said a mechanical inspection of the cluster bus is being carried out to ascertain if it was a technical or human fault.

Soon after the accident, the driver of the offending vehicle managed to flee.
Meanwhile, a huge crowd gathered at the spot and some of them vandalised the bus.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Shweta Chauhan said all those injured are undergoing treatment at different facilities, including Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Jeewan Mala Hospital and Trauma Centre in Civil Lines, are stated to be stable.

“An FIR has been registered under sections 279 (Rash driving or riding on a public way) and 338 (Causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code at Anand Parbat police station on the statement of Ritesh whose vehicle was hit by the bus before hitting the pavement dwellers,” she said.

The taxi driver, who is also a witness, told police that he was driving his car on Kamal T-point when suddenly a speeding cluster bus hit his vehicle and then rammed into the pavement dwellers, leaving them injured.

“We have formed multiple teams to nab the accused bus driver and are also scanning through CCTV cameras installed in and around the vicinity of the crime scene to ascertain the sequence of events,” a police officer said.