RAUTAHAT, MARCH 18
Families of the victims who were knocked down and killed by a pick-up truck with a drunk man behind the wheel have filed an FIR against the owner of the vehicle in Rautahat.
Two days ago, two locals - Jitendra Patel, 37, and Hari Kumar Thakur, 27 - had died on the spot when a pick-up truck driven by tipsy persons ploughed into shops on the roadside at Harshaha Chowk in Brindaban Municipality-6 on the Gaur-Rautahat road section. Families of the deceased jointly lodged an FIR against the vehicle owner and construction entrepreneur Nagendra Sah of Maulapur Municipality at the Area Police Office of Garuda.
In the FIR, the victim side has claimed that vehicle owner Sah and another person - Kundan Kushwaha (a suspended provincial assembly member) - had fled the site following the accident, and sending two other persons to the police later to give the incident a different turn.
According to police, the pick-up truck, after knocking down Patel and Thakur, had also hit two on-duty policemen on the road before running into a utility pole.
While Sup-inspector Upendra Prasad Sah, one of those hit policemen, is undergoing treatment at Garuda itself, constable Murtuja Ansari is being treated in Birgunj.
"Police, in the wake of the accident, had confiscated some beer bottles from the vehicle, and it clearly shows that the people in the vehicle, including the one driving, were drunk," said DSP Shreeram Bhandari of APO Garuda.
Families of the victims had refused to accept the dead bodies until Thursday evening, when the families finally received the dead bodies.
Rautahat police Chief Binod Pokharel said an FIR had indeed been filed against the vehicle owner and a few others. He also expressed his commitment to providing justice to the victim families.
Meanwhile, in relation with the accident and subsequent development, CPN-UML has issued a statement. While the statement issued by UML District Working Committee chair Tribhuvan Sah has expressed its sincere condolences over the deaths, it has also condemned the 'attempts to unfairly and intentionally implicate' its leader Prabhu Sah's brother in the accident. It has alleged that even the CDO and police officers of the district were involved in a defiling the image of the party. Further, the statement has asked that the persons involved in the conspiracies be suspended and an investigation is launched.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 19, 2022, of The Himalayan Times
