BHUBANESWAR: A senior doctor died after coming under the wheels of a moving bus from which he had tried to alight near
Omfed Square here on Thursday. The deceased has been identified by police as Basanta Rout, a medicine specialist at the
Angul district headquarters hospital.
Rout (58) had boarded the town bus at Sailashree Vihar Chhak and was supposed to get down at Acharya Vihar. However, when the bus reached Omfed Square, Rout realised that he would get late to the hospital as the vehicle would take a detour to Acharya Vihar.
"Rout was in a hurry. He wanted to reach Acharya Vihar as early as possible as he had to catch an auto-rickshaw from there to Capital Hospital to attend a training programme. When he learnt that the bus would go to Acharya Vihar via Jayadev Vihar, he requested the conductor to stop the bus. But the driver did not apply the brakes," deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Anup Kumar Sahoo told TOI.
Since the traffic had come to a crawl near Omfed Square, Rout thought he would get off at at Omfed Square and take an auto-rickshaw to Capital Hospital. In no time, he jumped off the moving vehicle. Passengers said he lost balance and came under the rear wheel. Though he was rushed to a nearby hospital, doctors declared him dead upon arrival.
Angry over the incident, locals vandalized the bus. Traffic was hit on the busy Jayadev Vihar-Nandankanan route for nearly half an hour following the accident. Prima facie, police said the accident occurred due to rash driving. The driver, Abhaya Behera, has been arrested.
Police said Rout who stays at Sailashree Vihar, had returned from Angul on Wednesday to attend a programme at Capital Hospital. Rout was recently promoted to the rank of joint director in the health department.
"We were waiting for him at a session for the doctors who were promoted to the rank of joint director. Suddenly, we received the tragic news," said a doctor of Capital Hospital.
The bus that ran over Basanta Rout
