Dad blames pothole for son’s death; cops deny

Dad blames pothole for son’s death; cops deny
Cops register accident case; BMC fills it up, but calls it a “routine exercise”.

The crater-like potholes of the city claimed another victim on Monday night, as a biker, Rizwan Khan, 21, apparently lost control when he crashed into one on Sir JJ Marg at Byculla. However, the police have denied that the pothole was the reason for his death.

Interestingly, the pothole was filled up the next day, but a civic official attributed it to “a routine pothole-filling exercise”.

Rizwan’s father, Kamaal, wrote to the JJ Marg police on Wednesday asking for an FIR to be lodged against the civic authorities for their negligence. “If the roads in our city were even, my son would have been alive today,” the bereaved father said.

However, the cops flatly denied that the pothole caused the death. Dilip Shinde, senior police inspector of JJ Marg police station, said, “The accident did not occur due to the pothole. We have registered a traffic accidental death report in the matter.”

Kamaal told Mirror that his son had gone to an ice-cream parlour in Byculla with his friend, Murtaza Sayyed, and was returning home around 11.30 pm when the accident occurred. “I received a call from Murtaza who informed me that they were returning home and were tailing a cab because of which they could not notice the pothole. He said that Rizwan lost control of his bike after the bike went straight into the large pothole,” Kamaal said.

Rizwan was immediately rushed to JJ Hospital where he was declared dead. Rizwan is survived by his father, who is a cobbler, mother, two sisters and a brother.

Politics over potholes

Wasim Sayyed, an activist from the Samajwadi Party, alleged that the BMC filled the same pothole on Tuesday morning only after the accident. “The police must act on the victim’s father’s complaint and take action against the municipal officials. We are also going to take this matter to the officials and ensure that they fill all the potholes in Mumbai so that such an incident does not occur again,” Sayyed said.

Rais Shaikh, Samajwadi Party leader in the BMC, also blamed the BMC for Rizwan’s death. "The civic body should give compensation to the family of the victim. It was a result of BMC's apathy. Even after several complaints about bad roads, there is no improvement. After the youth’s death, the civic body swung into action and filled the pothole immediately," he said. Shaikh also disrupted the civic standing committee meeting over the issue.

However, the BMC refused to accept that the pothole was filled due to Rizwan’s death. “Many potholes have come up due to the heavy rains from Sunday. We have asked our staff to get the potholes filled immediately. 140 tonnes of raw materials are being used to fill potholes every day,” Sanjay Deskmukh, additional municipal commissioner in charge of roads, told the civic standing committee on Wednesday. However, he refused to respond to allegations that Khan had died due to a pothole.

A FATHER’S TRIBUTE

In July 2015, Prakash Bilhore, 16, lost his life when the bike he was riding pillion on, hit a pothole which was submerged in water while returning after completing his admission formalities at a Bhandup college. Ever since the accident, Prakash’s father, Dadarao fills up every pothole he spots with his bare hands using broken paver blocks and debris that he collects from construction sites.