A day after half-a-dozen kanwariyas were killed in a road accident in Hathras, the state government on Sunday shunted out Superintendent of Police (SP) Vikas Kumar Vaidya and posted him as the commandant of Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) in Mirzapur. Devesh Kumar Pandey was made the new SP of Hathras.
On Saturday, six Kanwariyas were fatally mowed by a dumper truck near Sadabad in Hathras. The errant driver had fled the spot but was arrested later, police said.
According to a preliminary probe, the driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the pilgrims, a senior police officer said. Five of them died on the spot while the sixth succumbed at Sarojini Naidu Medical College in Agra. The pilgrims blamed it on the police for failing to regulate traffic on the route.
All the victims hailed from the Chaupal village in Bahangi Khurd in Gwalior. They were returning from Haridwar after collecting the holy water from the Ganga river early Saturday morning when the tragedy struck. One of the deceased, identified as Jawar Singh (26), a labourer, has left behind a 1-year-old daughter and it was only the second time in his life that he had taken part in the Kanwar Yatra.
In each lane of the dimly-lit village, which has over 150 houses, people sat on tarpaulins and charpoys through the night, letting the tragedy sink in. “A group of over 20 people from our village had gone to Haridwar last week. People here have been going on Kanwar Yatra for decades but such an incident has never occurred before. For two years due to the Covid pandemic, the yatra could not take place. People had been looking forward to completing the pilgrimage this year and were in high spirits,” said Mohan Swaroop Sharma, a local resident who lost his kin in the mishap.
Naresh Pal (45), one of the victims, was a labourer and used to earn Rs 300 per day. He is survived by his wife and three children. He was the only earning member in the family, Sharma said.
Naresh’s nephew Manoj Kumar (38) also worked as a labourer in the Gwalior market. He is survived by his wife and four children — two daughters and two sons, his relatives said.
Naresh’s cousin Ramesh Pal (52) was also killed in the incident. Ramesh’s brother Suresh, who had accompanied him to Haridwar, said he was in Agra when he came to know that his brother and six others had been mowed down by a dumper.
“Our group was walking ahead. My brother was among the group that had stopped to catch up with some rest and refreshments near Hathras. Three men in our extended family have died. It’s an irreparable loss,” Suresh said.
Another victim, Vikas Sharma (28), who was a farmer, had spoken to his family over the phone when he reached near Aligarh on Friday morning. “He (Vikas) had gone on the yatra several times in the past. He was unmarried and we had been looking for a girl for him for marriage,” his brother-in-law Ramesh Sharma said.
Meanwhile, expressing grief over the mishap, Communist Party of India (CPI) state secretary Dr Girish said it was a fallout of the mismanagement on the part of the administration. Dr Girish himself inspected the accident site and took stock of the arrangements for kanwariyas. He alleged that the administration destroyed evidence to avoid getting the blame. He demanded an ex gratia of Rs 50 lakh each for the family of the deceased and Rs 10 lakh each for the critically injured. He also demanded a high-level probe into the incident.
He also flayed the plan to shower flower petals on kanwariyas from a helicopter in Meerut and Saharanpur and said it should be postponed as a mark of respect to the departed souls.