Just three days after the officials of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Public Works Department (PWD) started work on marking the accident-prone spots to reduce the roads accidents on the national highway, two members of the religious fraternity from Haridwar died in a road accident near Bahadrabad while three other persons got seriously injured. The injured were admitted to the local hospital from where one of them was referred to the higher medical centre.
A new flyover is under construction near College of Engineering, Roorkee (COER), a few kilometers away from Bahadrabad and there is no sign board to clearly indicate the way between the two bridges out of which one is under construction. This long pending highway broadening work has taken toll on many lives till date but the concerned authorities have not been able to mitigate the death toll. After Supreme Court orders, a team of officials from the NHAI and the PWD had recently inspected and marked 22 such risky spots between Haridwar and Bahadrabad and assured to complete the work within three days.
Speaking to The Pioneer, Bahadrabad police station in charge Manohar Singh Bhandari said, “Five people were coming from Haryana to Haridwar at midnight on Saturday. There are two bridges near COER which the driver of the car appears to have missed out in darkness of night and the car slipped in the passage between the two. There was no sign board. Two people died in the accident.”
The deceased have been identified as Mayapur resident of Udaseen Akhada, Mahant Bhagwan Das and his disciple Pushpendra Goswami. The three injured include Mahesh Panch, Mahant Harendra Das and Vimlesh Goswami. The injured persons are also reported to be in a critical condition and one of them has been referred to higher medical centre for treatment. Cabinet Minister and local MlA Madan Kaushik has expressed condolence at the demise of the Ramanand Ashram Peethadheeshwar Mahant Bhagwan Das and his disciple Pushpendra Goswami.