Dumper mows down two in Mumbai

Milind Ballal / TNN / Oct 16, 2007, 00:39 IST

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An out-of-control dumper ran over a 10-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother who were going to school with their father at Kalwa Naka.

THANE: An out-of-control dumper ran over a 10-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother—who were going to school with their father—at Kalwa Naka on Monday morning. Another girl from the same family escaped with minor injuries but a man in his early thirties, knocked down by the same vehicle, was said to be in a critical condition. The injured were rushed to Shivaji Hospital.
Lalsa Gupta, a vegetable vendor, was accompanying his three children when the mishap occurred around 11.30 am.They were standing on a divider, waiting to cross the road, when the dumper coming from Thane went out of control and hit the family.
Aarti and Anupkumar Gupta died on the spot. Their father and passers-by took the children to hospital, where they were declared dead. Pramila (8), the third child, sustained minor injuries while Rajendra Mokashi, the man who was standing next to the family, was critically wounded.
Fighting back tears, the father said, "Without the children the world has come to an end for us.'' The children were students of Thane municipal school number 69 at Vitawa.

Residents accused the dumper driver, Yadav Mahadeo Kamble (35), of driving recklessly. Some even alleged that he was drunk. A senior citizen also pointed out that the accident may not have happened had the road been free from encroachment by autorickshaws.
Deputy commissioner of police (traffic) D Chavan said, ‘We have sent the driver for a medical test to ascertain if he was drunk.'' The DCP agreed that auto drivers need to be disciplined as they flout all rules while parking their vehicles.

The Thane police commissionerate has recorded 218 major accidents in the last nine months, causing 235 deaths. Most of them took place at Ghodbunder and the Bhiwandi bypass, followed by Manpada Road in Dombivli. Of the 235 deaths, those riding two-wheelers accounted for 99, followed by pedestrians (96), auto drivers and passengers (15), truck drivers and cleaners (5), car drivers (4) and bus passengers (3). The details of the rest were not available.
Although the Thane city administration has spent over Rs 300 crore on concretisation and widening of roads in the last few years, the growing traffic has kept adding to the problems. The 30,000-odd rickshaws have become a major headache, followed by rash driving by two-wheelers.
Kalwa Naka is a meeting point for heavy vehicles coming from Nashik-Bhiwandi and travelling to Navi Mumbai and Nhava Sheva . Residents of Saket Complex have tried hard to seek the intervention of the authorities to prohibit heavy traffic on the road from Balkum to Kalwa for fear of mishaps. "We are worried about the safety of our children,” said Meera Korde, the principal of Saraswati Vidyalaya in Rabodi.
The apprehension is not unfounded as two brothers riding a bicycle were killed in a mishap at Kalwa last year.
The authorities have expressed their inability to bypass Thane by diverting the traffic from Eastern Express highway to Airoli bridge owing to a legal complication over the movement of old vehicles.

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