Blame game over Vasant Kunj pothole death

The Delhi traffic police and the PWD department were locked in a blame game on Sunday over potholes that caused death of a motorcyclist in South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj on Saturday evening.

The PWD minister, Mr Satyendar Jain, claimed his officers had told the police that the potholes were liable to cause accidents on the stretch. “But the police did not even respond,” he said, adding that the PWD had written twice to the Delhi traffic police, requesting them to “allow the maintenance of potholes”. He said even though the police had been warned of a possible accident, it had seized a PWD van trying to do repair work in various parts of the city.

However, the Delhi traffic police refuted the claims of the PWD minister. It said that there is no need to take permission for repairing of potholes on any road. Permission is needed only in case a complete stretch of road undergoes re-carpeting. “No permission is needed from the traffic police department for repairing of potholes on any road across the city. The claims are baseless. Even we have requested civic authorities to repair the entire stretch on which the road accident occurred on Saturday. The road is in a pathetic state,” said Garima Bhatnagar, joint CP (traffic).

Deceased motorcyclist Praveen’s wife Rama was expecting a surprise from her husband on Saturday, as it was her birthday the next day when she got to know of his demise.

Recalling the incident, Praveen’s younger brother Arvind said when the family got a call from Praveen’s number around 9.30 pm, they thought he had reached home and rushed to open the door. His daughters, Nikita and Kusumita, were eagerly waiting for their father to return from work to go to the market.

“The police said that my brother fell into a pothole and a truck ran over his head. Apparently, the truck driver, who is still out of the police’s reach, is also not at fault. Had there been no pothole, my brother would have been alive. For us what matters now is the security of his two daughters,” said Arvind.

Praveen’s wife is a housewife and has no extra source of income. Praveen’s father, Virendra Pratap, a retired government officer, said, “We need to take care of the two girls. While Nikita is studying in Class 11, Kusumita is in 7th. My younger son has his own family to take care of. We will do as much as we can, but the girls’ career, their job, marriage everything needs to be taken care of. We appeal to the government to kindly extend us aid.”