MP: 2 yrs after death, man booked for accident in Dindori village
Two years after Dindori villager Rangi Singh died, he was booked by the local police for rash driving and causing grievous hurt to four people in a 2014 road accident case. An arrest warrant was also issued to the truck driver by a local court after he failed to appear before it despite repeated summons.
Two years after Dindori villager Rangi Singh died, he was booked by the local police for rash driving and causing grievous hurt to four people in a 2014 road accident case. An arrest warrant was also issued to the truck driver by a local court after he failed to appear before it despite repeated summons.
The goof-up came to light recently when a Keranjiya police team reached Singh’s house in Dindori’s Chaura Dadar village to execute the arrest warrant only to be told by Singh’s widow Kusum Kali that her husband had died in October 2012.
According to police, Singh was booked by cops of Keranjiya police station’s Gopalpur outpost for an accident in Tarwar Tola area in May 2014 when the vehicle was actually being driven by Singh’s relative, who was also using his license to drive heavy commercial vehicles.
Singh’s relative had even managed to get bail in the case just after the charge sheet was filed in the Dindori court in 2014.
Singh’s wife Kusum Kali will now appeal to the court to cancel the case lodged against her husband and seek action against the cops responsible for the goof-up.
Her counsel A Siddiqui told HT on Tuesday: “On coming to know that Singh has been made an accused and charge-sheeted in a road accident case in 2014, we went to the Dindori chief judicial magistrate (CJM) court and additional CJM court on Monday (June 6) to file a petition for cancelling the case as well as demanding strict action against the cops who booked a dead man in the case. But with both judges were on leave. We’ll now file the application later.”
Siddiqui also blamed the police for not crosschecking the facts.
“Had they gone to the address of the accused at any stage, from the time the FIR was lodged till when the accused was charge-sheeted, they would have easily detected that the actual accused was someone else and not Rangi, who died a natural death in October 2012.”
Dindori superintendent of police (SP), ML Chhari, meanwhile, gave a clean chit to the Keranjiya and Gopalpur police.
“Where is the police’s fault? We investigated the entire case as per the established rules of investigation in a criminal case. Now the investigations have revealed that a close relative was using the driving license of Rangi Singh and was driving the pick-up vehicle which hurt four people in Tarwar Tola area in May 2014. Even the owner of the truck did not know that it was not Singh, but someone else who was driving the heavy vehicle,” Chhari told HT over phone.
He said the police will now book the truck owner, the accused who posed as Rangi Singh and also those who filled a bond on behalf of the accused to allow him to secure a bail.