KATHMANDU, FEBRUARY 22
A 23-year-old woman lost her life today on a busy street of Jawalakhel, Lalitpur, while traffic police tried to stop her for regular checking.
Srijana Rai was heading towards Nakkhu, Jawalakhel, on her scooter. Her parents run a grocery shop in Nakkhu.
At around 1:30pm traffic police were conducting regular checking for driving licence and other documents.
A couple of motorcycle riders had already been detained for driving without the required documents. Similarly, some four-wheelers were stopped for checking. Seeing the cops busy checking other vehicles, Rai tried to evade the traffic cops, but one of the traffic policemen saw her and pulled her scooter from behind in a bid to stop her. Due to this she lost her balance and fell. A public bus that was moving alongside ran over her.
A seriously injured Rai was rushed to nearby Alka hospital, but she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Although police nabbed the bus driver on the spot, many eyewitnesses started shouting slogans against the traffic police accusing them of causing the accident.
Two eyewitnesses talking to THT said that they had seen a traffic policeman pulling Rai's scooter from behind and that resulted in the accident.
Mukunda Ghimire, who runs a printing press in Kathmandu, was one of the eyewitnesses.
He was detained by traffic police when the accident took place.
"We saw it clearly that Rai was mowed down by the bus when she lost balance of the scooter because the traffic cop pulled her vehicle from behind," Ghimire said. He further said that the traffic cop could have stopped the scooter from the front.
Dozens of people later gathered on the premises of Metropolitan Police Range, Lalitpur, demanding action against the erring traffic policeman.
Parents of the deceased came in contact in the late afternoon. The police, however, are denying the charge of the eyewitnesses.
Superintendent of Police Prajwol Maharjan at MPR said the deceased, who was not carrying legal documents, had tried to evade the traffic barricades and that resulted in the accident.
A version of this article appears in the print on February 23, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
