A seven-year-old girl died on the spot when a speeding
lorry knocked her down while she was crossing the road, right outside
her home in Ettiyapuram near Tambaram on Saturday morning. Furious
residents later traced the lorry, brought it back to the accident site
and set it on fire.
Latchaya is the oldest among
three children of Ramya and Ganesan, living in Ettiyapuram, about six
kilometres from Tambaram. A student of class II at a private school near
her home, she returned from school on Friday evening, and asked her
parents to get her posters of national leaders, rivers and maps for a
school project she had to submit on Monday.
Her
father Ganesan, a former driver, who had recently bought a lorry, told
her he would buy them the next day. Around 11 a.m on Saturday, Latchaya
went to her friend’s house across the road to get some material for the
project. Her mother helped her cross the road after making sure it was
safe. About 10 minutes later, she was returning back home when the
accident occurred.
“Ramya was trying to put her
other children – daughter Senniammal and son Kishore to sleep. There was
a loud noise followed by a commotion. We rushed out of our homes and
noticed Latchaya lying in a pool of blood and a lorry speeding away,”
said Saraswathy, a neighbour.
A profusely bleeding
Latchaya, who was critically injured on her thighs and abdomen, was
rushed to a private hospital in Tambaram, where she was pronounced dead
on arrival. Her body was taken to Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in
Chromepet.
Meanwhile, the driver of the lorry,
Chinnadurai, sped away after the accident. He parked his vehicle inside a
stone quarry, less than a kilometre away and fled. Angry residents of
Ettiyapuram, Naduveerappattu, Dargast, Erumaiyur and localities in the
vicinity gathered in a short while. A few hundred people stormed the
quarry and brought the lorry (TN 22 AM 5155) back to the accident spot.
Residents
soon brought along small bottles as well as big cans of petrol and
kerosene, poured it on the lorry and set it on fire. Women were in the
forefront of the gathering and some of them threw dry coconut fronds
inside the vehicle to fan the flames. Soon personnel from Manimangalam
and Somangalam police stations reached the spot.
However,
the residents squatted around the burning lorry, preventing a Fire
tender from Tambaram from getting anywhere near the vehicle. Police
personnel were at the receiving end of public anger as many of the
protestors charged that nothing was done to prevent the menace of
overspeeding vehicles.
The residents made way for
the fire tender only after police officials assured them of stringent
action against those responsible. A case under Section 304 (ii) of
Indian Penal Code (culpable homicide not amount to murder) has been
registered and Chinnadurai of Pazhanthandalam was arrested in the
evening.
At the government hospital in Chromepet,
where a post-mortem examination of Latchaya’s body was performed, Ramya,
the young girl’s mother refused to even drink water offered by her
close relatives. Prathap, a resident of the locality, said Latchaya
would often be seen enthusiastically reading her lessons or involved in
craftwork.
Residents have been demanding speed
breakers at regular intervals. Lorries, especially those transporting
stones, hardly follow safety norms and their drivers, without exception,
indulge in rash driving, they said.
