‘Cops just stood there for 45 minutes’

NEW DELHI: Two weeks ago, 41-year-old Kewal Dhiman had promised his elder daughter Manya, a Class III student at a private school in Noida, that he would treat her to ice cream at India Gate once her exams got over. On Monday night, he kept his promise and took his wife, Poonam, and daughters, Manya and Maira, to the India Gate lawns for an outing.


They left their home in east Delhi’s

Gandhi Nagar

after dinner. While

sitting

on the

south-side lawn

of

Rajpath

, the

family

froze as they were

blinded

by the

headlights

of a

dumper truck

blaring its horn and charging at them. Dhiman acted quickly and pushed away Poonam and Maira from harm’s way. However, he came under the wheels while trying to push Manya away.

“My husband lay there in a pool of blood, while my daughter’s face was buried in the grass. She could have been saved had people and police helped us,” an inconsolable Poonam told TOI while waiting outside the mortuary of Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital to collect her husband’s and daughter’s mortal remains.

The family members alleged that police stood at the spot for 45 minutes even as the injured lay on the lawn. People gathered around, but no one came forward to help. Instead, they were busy making videos on their mobile phones.

Poonam, who suffered minor injuries, said that when she tried to pick up her injured daughter, a woman constable told her not to intervene in their work. She was asked to wait away from the accident site. Poonam then called her brother, Sahil, who lives in Tilak Nagar.

“I had called my brother-in-law a few minutes before the accident took place. He told me they would be sending me photographs of the children playing at India Gate. Later, I received a call that my sister’s family had been involved in an accident,” Sahil said.

Sahil alleged that when he reached the spot after travelling 22 kilometres from Tilak Nagar to India Gate, he found that the injured had not been shifted to a hospital even by then. “There was a large crowd of policemen and bystanders, but the injured were still lying on the lawn. My niece was still breathing. She could have been saved had she been taken to the hospital in time,” he added.

Dhiman’s father, Inderjeet, said his son was the sole breadwinner of the family and was planning to start a stockbroking business. “He had asked me for a loan to start the business,” he added. The family was planning a grand birthday celebration for Dhiman next month.

Autorickshaw driver Deepak Kumar (27), who was injured, had been waiting for passengers next to his vehicle. He suffered multiple fractures. He is a resident of Mandir Marg. Another injured, Ram Singh, is a daily wager and a native of Unnao, UP. He had gone to India Gate after finishing work. He was resting on the pavement when the dumper hit him.

Denying the allegations of delay, a Delhi Police spokesperson said that as soon as the incident was reported, senior officers reached the spot and transported the injured to a nearby hospital. Some of the injured, who were trapped in the wreckage, were carefully pulled out and taken for treatment.

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