Stunned by the ghastly road accident near Punjagutta graveyard which resulted in the death of Ramya and her uncle, officials intensified drunk driving checks during daytime and started raiding bars to check if liquor was being served to under-aged customers. But the death dance continued on city roads, be it the city’s central part like Begumpet or fringe area such ase Maheshwaram. A 56-year-old private employee died after a speeding Tata Sumo rammed from behind the bike he was riding around 7 a.m. on Wednesday on Begumpet main road. The victim Venkateshwara Rao’s wife Padmavathi sitting pillion escaped with fractures on hands. She is recuperating in Gandhi hospital. Nearly nine hours later, an eleven-year-gold girl was fatally knocked down by a Road Transport Corporation bus at Maheshwaram on city outskirts.
Though the two fatal road accidents, profiles of the victims, accused vehicles, causes and locations are different, police officers investigating the cases and many people feel that the two accidents could have been averted. Rao was heading from Rasoolpura to Begumpet on Pulsar bike when the accident occurred near Varun Motors on the main road.
There were conflicting versions as to what caused the accident but surely the Tata Sumo driver was at high speed. “Traffic volumes are high on this road even at 7 a.m. Whatever be the driver’s urgency, he was not supposed to drive at such high speed,” Begumpet Sub-Inspector E. Shiva Kumar who examined the spot said.
The road was fairly wide and both the Sumo and bike were going in the same direction. There was no darkness either for the Sumo driver to take the plea of poor light. “Had he driven a bit slowly, Rao would have been alive. Life would have been normal for his wife and other family members,” the SI observed.
Eleven-year-old Shaik Udha got off the school bus at Siripuram gate in Maheshwaram around 4 p.m. Her home was on the other side of the road divider. As the bus moved, she started crossing the road when a speeding RTC bus hit her. Death was instant for her.
Udha’s parents hailing from Bidar of Karnataka came to Hyderabad for livelihood. They were working in guava gardens at Maheshwaram. They admitted the 11-year-old girl in LKG as they couldn’t afford schooling for her earlier. “What was the need for the bus driver to drive so rashly? Does he have to be at such high speed? Everyone needs to think instead of passing the buck,” say the investigators.
