Seven-year-old girl dies, sister injured as truck hits them

NEW DELHI: A seven-year-old girl was killed and her sister severely injured when they were knocked down by a truck at the traffic lights near the Guru Ravidas Marg-Okhla crossing on Saturday afternoon. The children were returning home from school. They were crossing the road to board an autorickshaw for Tughlaqabad when the truck, idling at the traffic signal, began moving suddenly and hit them.
The girls, Sandhya and Kamini, fell and landed under chassis of the Eicher truck. Eyewitnesses reported that the truck driver stepped out of his vehicle and helped the two children crawl out from beneath the truck. He then put them in the truck and drove them to Maijithia Hospital in the vicinity. A group of local residents who had gathered at the accident site followed the trio.

While taking the children to the hospital, the driver told people around that he had not seen the children crossing the road because his line of sight was impeded by the truck bonnet. He had accelerated as soon as the signal had turned green.

At the hospital, doctors declared Sandhya’s condition was serious. On hearing this, the truck driver went into a panic. Hearing the news, some people beat him up, and he soon fled from the place, leaving his truck in the hospital parking. In the meantime, police were informed and a team from the Govindpuri police station reached the hospital and impounded the truck.

“We have registered a case against the driver for causing death due to negligence and for negligent driving and are searching for him to arrest him. The truck was registered with a transporter, so we have contacted him to identify the missing driver,” said Chinmoy Biswal, DCP (South-east). The cops are going through the CCTV footage from the cameras installed at the crossing to determine how the fatal accident took place.

After Sandya’s life could not be saved, the hospital authorities informed Jaiveer, the father of the two girls, about the accident. The girl’s body was handed over to the family. Doctors say that Kamini escaped with some scratches and bruises. Sandhya, whose body also showed bruises, could have died due to an internal injury on her head or from trauma at being run over by a truck.

The children study at a government school in Govindpuri and were going back home in the JJ camp in Tughlaqabad Fort. Jaiveer works as a labourer at a factory in Lado Sarai, while their mother is a housewife. The girls also had a brother.