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(Clockwise from top) Locals gather at the accident site at Bamunimaidam, Das lies on a hospital bed after first aid and doctors attend to Sarkar at GMCH on Sunday. Telegraph pictures
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Guwahati, Oct. 7: The city today paid the price of trucks parking on the wrong side of the road opposite the FCI go down at Bamunimaidam with two boys getting injured when their bike was hit by a truck coming from the Noonmati end on the wrong side of the divider at 10.40pm.
As has been the case for many years now, dozens of other trucks were already parked on that side of the road, blocking off nearly two-thirds of lane.
The bike’s (AS01 M 4545) front, including the wheel, was completely smashed and the mangled chassis had gone partially under the truck (AS01 BC 2807). The victims, Biju Das and Sanjay Sarkar, who are from Narengi and Noonmati respectively, were rushed to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital.
While Das suffered a leg fracture, Sarkar has suffered, among others, a deep gash in his neck. “Sarkar's condition is serious while Das will have to be examined for head injuries,” doctors attending to them at Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) said.
Scores of locals hit the street after the accident to protest against the attitude of the police, who, they said, were not concerned about the safety of other vehicles and pedestrians and allowed these trucks to park haphazardly despite a string of complaints. The crowd, which was on the verge of getting violent, initially refused to allow the police crane to remove the mangled motorcycle from under the truck.
Senior FCI officials, during previous reportage some months ago, had promised to remove the FCI godowns to Boragoan on the outskirts of the city. The shifting, though, has not taken place yet.
It has been quite a few years that trucks have been parked on both sides of the six-lane (three-by-three) arterial road connecting Narengi and Maligaon, choking the passage of vehicular traffic. Hundreds of trucks are parked there through the night, starting 6 in the evening, often blocking off the entire left side of the road as one comes from Noonmati towards Chandmari. Once that side is blocked off, trucks use the right side of the road divider in a single file, forcing other vehicles to drive on the wrong side of the road. Added to this is the fact that the authorities, even after years of installing street lamps in the area, have failed to make them operational. As a result, the area is completely dark after dusk, turning the place into a veritable death trap for motorists and pedestrians alike.
The police, too, seemed at a loss this evening. “We patrol this area as best as we can but as you know, some truck or the other will always break the rules,” said deputy superintendent of police Bidyut Das Boro who visited the accident site.
Police later managed to convince the locals and remove the bike from the site.
D.S. Parikh, a resident of the area, said every day, trucks coming to the FCI godowns, are parked on both sides of the road and the police do nothing to solve the problem. “The police and the district authorities are not even concerned about the problem despite the fact that that apart from several localities, there are several educational institutions including Guwahati College, Asom Jatiya Vidyalaya and Sarvajanin Hindi High School in the area,” he said.
Scoffing at the police’s claim that they patrolled the area, he said it had taken the police at least 15 minutes to arrive at the spot after he had dialled 100 following the accident.
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