Two Shimla girls die under mysterious circumstances
Mystery shrouds the death of two 12-year-old girls who were spotted by passersby on the Sanjauli-Navbahar road on Monday afternoon.
Mystery shrouds the death of two 12-year-old girls who were spotted by passersby on the Sanjauli-Navbahar road on Monday afternoon.
Nancy Thakur of Sanjauli and her friend Sakshi Thakur of Navbahar, students of Class 6 at Convent of Jesus and Mary here, were seen lying on the road around 3:30pm. Nilakash, a passerby, said Nancy died when he was taking her to Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) Hospital.
Deputy superintendent of police (city) Praveer Thakur ruled out the possibility of a hit-and-run accident. He said he had visited the spot along with superintendent of police (SP) Chander Shekhar Pandit and IG (south range) AP Siddique.
The DSP said as per prima facie evidence, the girls had visited a spot on the hill above the road, where books, chips and bottles of soft drinks were found. "We have taken special permission for conducting the postmortem during the night," he said.
"Investigations are on. We can comment only after receiving the postmortem report," said Pandit.
Nancy's paternal uncle Manmohan Thakur said the police had so far failed to ascertain the cause of the deaths. He said it took the police and the administration almost three hours to reach the hospital.
A neighbour of one of the girls, St Bede's teacher Neel Kamal Bedi, said the area where the duo was found was unsafe for the public due to the presence of miscreants. "We have asked the police repeatedly to take corrective steps, but to no avail," Bedi added.
Mayor Sanjay Chauhan and deputy mayor Tikender Singh Panwar, who reached the hospital before the police and the district administration, slammed the police for not taking prompt action to probe the incident.
It was only after 6:30pm that Pandit and deputy commissioner Arun Sharma arrived at the hospital.
