Exit light, enter night 

A multi-utility vehicle with seven persons aged between 19 and 25 rammed a truck going in the same direction, in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Six died, and one is on life support. Samridhi Tewari reports on the accident that has left parents bereft and the administration contemplating ways of preventing such accidents

Trigger warning: The following article contains disturbing details of an accident.

Like many healthcare professionals working a shift, Deepak Pandey, a 34-year-old nurse at Max Hospital in Dehradun, was on his way back from work on his bike. It was close to 1.20 a.m. on November 12. That evening, among his many duties, he had moved a patient from the hospital to home in an ambulance. Tired, he was looking forward to getting home.

As he neared ONGC Chowk, one of Dehradun’s busiest locations, near The Doon School, the Forest Research Institute, and the Indian Military Academy, about 9 kilometres away from the hospital, he heard a “bomb-like” sound, and then he smelled blood. About 50 metres away, Pandey saw that a new vehicle had crashed into a container truck. Even for Pandey, who was used to seeing people injured, it was a shock. “For five seconds, I could not comprehend what had happened,” he says.

When he went closer, he saw many mangled bodies. Pandey flagged down vehicles passing that way, asking them for help. To check who was alive, they dragged the bodies out of the car. Pandey found that one person was breathing and someone who had a car quickly put the person in and rushed him to Synergy Hospital, about 600 metres away.

Soon about 40 people gathered. They began taking photos and videos of the scene. “It was shameful to see that people were busy with their phones. Only four persons actually helped,” Pandey recalls, adding that the accident was like something out of a horror movie.

Police say that even after the bodies were retrieved from the wreckage and sent to the mortuaries, there were still body parts scattered on the road. Six people, between 19 and 24, died; only one survives.

In 2022, India recorded over 4.61 lakh road accidents and over 1.68 lakh road accident deaths, according to data from the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. At least 95,785 accidents occurred due to speeding, while 2,949 accidents occurred due to drunken driving. Uttarakhand recorded over 1,674 accidents in 2022 that led to the killing of 1,042 people.

Speeding turned fatal

The dead have been identified as Guneet, 19; Kunal Kukreja, 23; Rishabh Jain, 24; Navya Goyal, 23; Atul Agarwal, 24; Kamakshi, 20. Siddhesh Agarwal, 25, is critically injured and remains in hospital.

The vehicle belonged to Atul, who had bought the car for Dhanteras, a festival that celebrates wealth and kicks off the Deepavali celebrations. His permanent number plate had still not come. Atul’s father, Sunil Agarwal, is a businessman who deals in firecrackers, and Atul helped him in the business. On the night of the accident, Siddhesh had hosted a gathering at his parents’ house where he lived.

The Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), at a press conference on November 18, said that all footage from Smart City and private CCTV cameras along the accident route were analysed. Police found that the vehicle ran within the speed limit of 70 kmph most of the way, but picked up speed just 500-700 metres away from ONGC Chowk. It covered a distance of 600 metres in 13 seconds, ramming into the moving container truck.

Later, the car company’s technical team was called in for an investigation. They found there could have been two possibilities for the accident: speeding or a water bottle stuck underneath the brakes, restricting the driver from applying them.

Police did not conduct a toxicology test on the bodies, to test for alcohol and narcotics, citing the loss faced by parents is too great to bear one more possible blow. They await Siddhesh’s statement, to determine the sequence of events.

The loneliness of loss

Siddesh’s father, Vipin Agarwal, sits in the hospital, hoping to hear his son’s first few words. “My son is in the ICU, on a ventilator. He has head injuries, and it is a difficult time for our family. We can only pray. All we’re left with is hope,” Vipin adds, with a shaky voice over a call. He was to leave for a wedding in Jaipur the next day, when he got the call about the accident. He cannot imagine how the other families are coping.

Kamakshi’s father, Tushar Singhal, is beside himself with grief. “She came home after having dinner with Guneet. She was going to sleep when her friends called her for a drive. They said they would all be back in half an hour. We went to sleep, and then got a call about the accident,” Singhal says. Kamakshi was doing her B.Com. and was studying to be a chartered accountant. The other families did not want to speak about their loss.

Meanwhile, the voyeuristic world of social media came alive. Videos claiming to be from the dinner party before the drive went viral on Instagram, Facebook, X, and Reddit. In addition, photos of the site of the accident were put out, with the bodies of female victims shared on social media platforms. They were later taken down, but for the families, these visuals have become a nightmare they find hard to live with.

Immediately after the crash, a video of the mangled car and crushed bodies was circulated on X, however, it was taken down “for violating content policies.” The graphic footage showed distressing visuals, that were deemed by the platform as “gratuitous gore.”

Singhal says false stories were shared on social media: “Both my wife and I haven’t been doing well mentally, and those videos on YouTube are haunting.” Vipin registered a complaint, and asked the police to investigate the footage, but did not name anybody in the FIR.

Dehradun, a cultural shift

In 2000, Dehradun, the gateway to Mussoorie, an erstwhile British-cultivated hill station, became the capital of the newly formed State of Uttarakhand. As a government hub, urbanisation escalated; so did tourism.

Himanshu Joshi, 52, has seen both Dehradun and Uttarakhand emerging into a tourist hub. A resident of Laxman Chowk, that is situated in the middle of the city, Joshi, who currently owns a pharmaceutical company and a hospital, was born in Dehradun, before it was carved out of Uttar Pradesh.

Joshi describes the Dehradun of the ‘80s and ‘90s as a place for people who retired from their jobs or government employees. “Back then, people respected public spaces. After 2000, spaces became commercial,” he says. Now, over 15 universities have come up in Dehradun changing the demography of people who occupy public spaces the most.

There is a change in the way people consume too. Rajpur Road, a 7-km stretch that connects Dehradun and Mussoorie, is now dotted with pubs, clubs, and alcohol shops. The road sees high-speed traffic.

Action and reaction

Earlier in October, District Magistrate Savin Bansal took strict action based on a public complaint, and ordered closure of a liquor shop for 15 days, after residents from the area surrounding Behl Chowk on Rajpur Road had complained about the consumption of alcohol at the liquor shop past midnight.

In a similar action, the Dehradun administration has cracked down on resto-bars and pubs operating beyond the 11 p.m. serving time. The DM formed a five-member team to conduct the raids. All SDMs have also been instructed to impose penalties or to cancel the licenses of establishments that don’t follow the rules.

Post the incident, the Director General of Police, Uttarakhand, Abhinav Kumar, has ordered a stringent checking of all vehicles at all the crucial posts in Dehradun. However, at the city’s major intersections, there was no police presence and no streetlights in certain areas.

At some locations, including ONGC Chowk, which was well-lit, there were no police barricades. Rajpur Road also lacks police presence and inspection. Several other places The Hindu visited at night too did not have police presence.

In response to the lack of checkpoints, the SSP says so far, there are 17 checkposts in Dehradun where inspections take place. He also says that too much barricading would lead to traffic congestion as it is a small city with a heavy tourist influx. He says at five points, breathalyser tests are being carried out, with three points in rural areas. “We are working to keep traffic lights functional until midnight. In the area of the crash, we will install double rumble strips,” he adds.

Published - November 23, 2024 07:22 pm IST