From Prabir Sil
AGARTALA: “At least four passengers, who were critically injured in the worst-ever road accident in Meghalaya’s Tongseng village, could have been saved if the administration used chopper service to ferry them to a hospital immediately.”
This was stated in a confidential report submitted to Tipura government by the District Magistrate of Unokoti Avishek Chandra.
In his report, Chandra, who led Tripura government’s rescue team, has held the driver of the ill-fated bus responsible for the accident, which claimed 30 lives. 26 others were injured in the August 8 mishap.
“The driver of the vehicle was in an inebriated condition when the mishap took place. The report of District Drug De-addiction Centre (DDDC), Unokoti, also acknowledged the same”, the report said while suggesting that a murder case (IPC 302) should be registered against the driver.
Interestingly, the ill-fated vehicle (AS01Y-7379) was registered with the Assam Transport department.
On the problems faced by his team during rescue operation, the DM said, “The team had to face lot of difficulties in identifying the dead passengers. All belongings, including money bags, of the passengers were stolen after the accident, which posed a big challenge before the rescue team in establishing identity of the bodies,” the report said. Regard the facilities provided by the Meghalaya government, the report stated that no Meghalaya official except one Deputy Collector of East Jaintia Hills was available at the site. “This caused a bid problem in taking the injured to the nearby hospitals,” it said.
The DM has also taken exception over the dilapidated condition of the NH at Tengseng near Sonarpur. “The road needs immediate attention. Even there was no arrangement for disaster mitigation facilities alongside the NH 44”, it said. In his report, Chandra has also suggested some remedial measures to avoid this kind of disasters in future.
“There must be a mechanism to monitor movement of vehicles on the NH 44. Besides, the travelling agencies must keep complete address of passengers including mobile number for speedy identification”, he said.
Meanwhile, Tripura Transport Secretary Kishore Ambuly has said the government would take some stringent measures to avoid such kind of accidents in future.