February 11 road mishap
SHILLONG: Giving a new twist to the February 11 road mishap involving Chief Minister Mukul Sangma’s official vehicle, a witness of the accident on Monday claimed that the tourist vehicle bumped into Sangma’s car as the driver of the former swerved to make way for an approaching scooter and added that booking the driver under 307 IPC (attempt to murder) is unconstitutional.
Addressing a press conference here, the witness, Disparsing Rani, who is an RTI activist, said that police had recorded his statement at Lumdiengjri Police Station
“I was present at the time of the accident, and the driver of tourist cab swerved to make way for an approaching scooter,” Rani said.
He added, “As per the law, any accident on the road it is the lookout of the Traffic Branch. We will file a counter FIR if the case is not handed over to the traffic branch.”
Rani asserted that the peculiar case revealed that the law is harsh to the poor even as he questioned as to why the Chief Minister ‘fled’ from the scene without waiting for the arrival of the traffic officials to complete necessary formalities of taking photographs of the collision.
However, he said that the driver had to wait to complete all the formalities and his vehicle was also taken to the police station.
It may be mentioned that while the vehicle of the driver was taken to Lumdiengjiri police station, the official vehicle of the Chief Minister was released on the same day.
The whereabouts of the Chief Minister’s official vehicle is not known, whereas the tourist vehicle is still kept at Lumdiengjiri police station.
Rani, however, urged the Chief Minister to intervene into the matter and to withdraw the case filed against the driver identified as Jeskalur L Mawdoh (25).
Condemnations have poured in following the arrest of the driver of the tourist sumo.
Police divided on charge
The report of the Motor Vehicle Inspector on the accident has highlighted only about rash and negligent driving on the part of the driver and not any attempt to murder (Section 307 of IPC).
However, sources said that it is yet to be known whether report on the Chief Minister’s vehicle was taken by MVI.
Sources said that while a section of police officers pointed out that the driver should have been booked under normal Motor Vehicle Act, those who man the Chief Minister’s security, however went overboard to include section 307 of IPC pointing out that since the Chief Minister was a VIP, they had to do so.
Earlier, the former KHADC CEM Adelbert Nongrum and CSWO president Agnes Kharshiing had criticized the police action of slapping section 307 of IPC on the driver.