By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS,
Kathmandu : Six Indian were mowed down by a speeding car in the heart of capital city Kathmandu early Wednesday, the day Nepal celebrated the Rakshabandhan festival for longevity.
Police said the dead include two women and two teenagers, all of them from Bihar. A seventh victim, who suffered serious head injuries, is fighting for his life in a neurological hospital in the capital.
Bir Hospital, Nepal’s oldest hospital, was in the eye of a storm Wednesday with local people and the victims’ relatives erupting in protests.
Enraged protesters burnt tyres on the main road, disrupting traffic. They raised anti-police slogans, saying cops were not serious about arresting the guilty.
The tragedy occurred around 12.45 a.m. as the family of 15-year-old Sanjeev Gupta, who came from Bihar’s Sitamarhi district to do business in Nepal, were coming out of the hospital in the Tundikhel area of the capital.
The teenager was suffering from stomach pain and with the spectre of a diarrhoea epidemic raging in western Nepal, had been rushed to the hospital Tuesday night.
Hospital personnel said seven people, including the teenager, were leaving the hospital when a car, hurtling at high speed in violation of traffic signals along a one-way street, ploughed through the group, killing six on the spot.
Besides Sanjeev, the other victims are Madan Kumar Gupta, 29, and Krishna Devi Gupta, 40, all of them from Sitamarhi.
The car also killed Dharma Nath Sinha, 50, of Kasuha, Veena Singh Gupta, 46, from Motihari, and a youth, said to be in his late teens, who is yet to be identified.
The seventh person in the group, Dipak Gupta, 28, from Sitamarhi, has been admitted to the National Institute of Neurological and Allied Sciences here, police said.
The car belongs to a local resident of Kathmandu, Shanti Mansingh. It was being driven by her son, Biplab Mansingh, who fled the scene without stopping to help the maimed victims and is now absconding. Police have detained his father and elder brother for questioning.
Blood stained the road in front of the hospital while belongings of the victims lay scattered. Hundreds of people kept vigil at the hospital, where post-mortem of the bodies was awaited. They shouted slogans asking for the perpetrator to be brought to justice.