Truck hits couple on scooter, woman dies

AHMEDABAD: A 56-year-old woman died after being run over by a speeding truck in Sukhramnagar area of Amraiwadi, early on Tuesday morning. Her husband, who was driving the scooter, also got flung from the vehicle but survived.
Locals chased the truck for over 4 km and handed over the driver to traffic police after beating him up.
I Division traffic police station has registered an offence of causing death by negligence against the truck driver.
According to police investigators, Navinchandra Patel, a resident of Shankarnagar Society on Ghodasar Road, was going from Sukhramnagar with his wife Beena on a scooter. He was travelling to drop his wife at Swaminarayan Kanya Vidyalay in the area, where she was a teacher in class XI and XII (commerce) subjects.
“At 7.25 am, when they were near a crossroads, a truck tried to overtake them from behind and hit the scooter. Beena fell on the side of the truck whereas the scooter was flung a few feet away with Navinchandra still clinging to it. The front tyre of the truck ran over Beena killing her on the spot,” said an investigator. The truck dragged the remains of her body for over 15 feet without stopping, until the driver realized he had run somebody over. A group of angry locals chased the truck for over 4 km before the driver was forced to stop at a Civil Hospital gate in Asarwa.
The driver was identified as Maninder Singh from Punjab. Harshad Patel, a social worker from Amraiwadi, said that the same stretch had witnessed a gruesome accident just 10 days ago, and even then the victim was a schoolteacher.
“The locals have represented the issue of uneven roads and speeding vehicles, but so far no steps have been taken to reduce fatal accidents,” he said, adding that Navinchandra works as a trustee of a Gomtipur-based school.