Who’ll take responsibility, techie asks after dad’s death

Agra/Ghaziabad/Noida: Twenty-year-old Lucknow resident, Ariba Khan, who was heading for a job interview to Delhi, flew home a day earlier from Mumbai where she worked as the sales head of private firm, just to meet her mother. The family has a house in Wazirganj in Lucknow.
She spent a night and a few living hours in the company of her mother, Afroz Khan. They both chatted and laughed endlessly, her cousin Mohammad Azim told TOI. “The house was so lively,” he added.
“Later, Ariba, who the oldest among three siblings, boarded the evening bus for Delhi for her job interview,” Azim said, adding that her mother has been told of the accident but not her death.
Another passenger, Sunita, 26, was travelling to Delhi with her husband Bhanu Pratap, 30, along with their two children, 2.5-year-old Riya and Yuvraj, 5. Everything seemed fine until the ill-fated UPSRTC bus hit the railing of the flyover at Milestone 161 and plunged 40 feet into a drain. Her spouse and daughter were killed on the spot.
Admitted to a private hospital with head injury, Sunita said, “Bhanu and Riya were sitting right beside me. I don’t know how the accident happened, as I was sleeping. I woke up in the hospital along with my son. My husband and daughter were gone.”
Another injured passenger, Manju Sharma, 57, is a resident of Ghaziabad’s Chiranjeev Vihar. Her husband Satya Prakash Sharma, 63, was killed in the accident. Neighbours said the Sharmas had left Ghaziabad four days ago and were returning from Lucknow on Monday when the bus fell into a drain on Yamuna Expressway near Agra’s Etmadpur. Manju suffered fractures on her legs, besides injuries on the head and back.
“We were returning from Lucknow after visiting one of our relatives. Satya was sitting next to me at the time of the accident. When I regained consciousness, he was no more,” said Manju, who was shifted to S N Medical College.
Manju’s son Kushal Sharma, an IT engineer, told TOI, “My mother is in a stable condition. But I want justice for my father. Who is responsible for this tragic accident – the driver, UPSRTC, state government or the Yamuna Expressway authority? Every day people’s lives are lost on the stretch and nobody seems to care. Somebody has to be responsible.”
Rajnish Srivastav, the Sharmas’ tenant, said, “Uncle (Satya) was quite good at his job, so the company had been still using his services. For this, he would frequently go to various towns on official tours. However, this time around, the aunt (Manju) also went with him.”
Manoj Kumar, a 32-year-old clerk with UPSRTC, also died in the accident. He was posted in the UPSRTC’s Noida regional office and was returning home after meeting his family in Lucknow.
“He had gone to Lucknow over the weekend and was supposed to join work on Monday. When he didn’t turn up by 10am, some of his friends contacted his family. By then, we had already heard about the accident on the expressway,” said Anurag Yadav, assistant regional manager at the Morna bus depot.
Ghaziabad: An elderly couple from Ghaziabad and a UPSRTC clerk returning to Noida after meeting his family were among the passengers of the ill-fated Jan Rath bus that met with an accident in Agra early on Monday. While 65-year-old Satya Prakash Sharma from Chiranjiv Vihar in Ghaziabad died on the spot, his 57-year-old wife Manju survived.
Neighbours said the Sharmas had left Ghaziabad four days ago and were returning from Lucknow on Monday when the bus fell into a drain on Yamuna Expressway near Agra’s Etmadpur. Manju suffered fractures on her legs, besides injuries on the head and back.
Satya Prakash had retired from the marketing department of a liquor company a few years ago but was still associated with it.
Rajnish Srivastav, the Sharmas’ tenant, said, “Uncle (Satya) was quite good at his job, so the company had been still using his services. For this, he would frequently go to various towns on official tours. However, this time around, the aunt (Manju) also went with him.”
He added that they had planned to visit Varanasi as well during the trip.
The couple’s two sons, Ranjan and Khushal, rushed to Agra after the accident. While Ranjan, who is a business analyst with a Noida-based firm, lives with the couple, Khushal lives with his family in Noida.
At least 29 people were killed and 23 others injured when a passenger bus fell into a drain on the Yamuna Expressway on Monday morning. Initial probe revealed that the mishap occurred after the driver of the bus, which was travelling from Lucknow to Delhi, dozed off at the wheel.
The bus, after hitting the divider, fell into a 40-foot-deep gap between two flyovers on the expressway near Milestone 161 under Etmadpur police jurisdiction of Agra district at around 4.15am.
Manoj Kumar, a 32-year-old clerk with the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC), also died in the accident. He was posted in the Noida regional office of the UPSRTC as a booking clerk and was returning home after meeting his family in Lucknow over the weekend.
“He had gone to Lucknow over the weekend and was supposed to join work on Monday. When he didn’t turn up by 10am, some of his friends panicked and contacted his family. By then, we had already heard about the accident on the expressway,” said Anurag Yadav, assistant regional manager at the Morna bus depot.
The family informed that Manoj had left home around 11pm on Sunday to catch a bus for Noida. He had last spoken to his family after boarding at night and had said that he would speak to them in the morning. Two persons from the Morna depot were immediately sent to the accident site and the body was identified around noon. Manoj’s body was taken to his home in Lucknow.
Manoj had married about eight months ago and would visit his family during long weekends. He was appointed by the UP roadways in 2009 against his father’s position, who had died of an illness while working for roadways. Manoj was promoted three years later in 2012.
“He was the sole breadwinner of his family and had been married less than a year ago. Several roadways employees and friends have reached Lucknow to be with the family,” Yadav said.