Two days on, hawkers cleared from spot where bus ran over commuters

The operation was conducted from 10am till 2pm, and around 10-15 hawkers who were selling vegetables and flowers were ordered to clear their stalls and leave the area, said Balasaheb Pawar, senior police inspector, Bhandup police station

MUMBAI: Two days after four people lost their lives and 11 others were injured when a BEST bus hit several people outside Bhandup railway station, local police and officials from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday cleared the area of illegal hawkers who had taken over footpaths.

Commuters standing in a queue for a BEST bus outside Bhandup station (Hindustan Times)

The operation was conducted from 10am till 2pm, and around 10-15 hawkers who were selling vegetables and flowers were ordered to clear their stalls and leave the area, said Balasaheb Pawar, senior police inspector, Bhandup police station.

“We had cleared the area of hawkers on Tuesday as well. Today, we warned them not to return and encroach on the footpath again,” Pawar said. “The road outside the station is congested and such steps need to be taken to ensure Monday’s accident is not repeated.”

Four police personnel have been stationed in the area and announcements are being made regularly, warning errant hawkers of stringent action, the officer noted.

Meanwhile, officers probing the fatal accident suspect that the arrested bus driver, 52-year-old Santosh Ramesh Sawant, is falsely claiming that he had taken to the wheel just before the incident.

Sawant has been booked under sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 110 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 125(a) (acts endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and section 184 (dangerous driving) of the Motor Vehicles Act.

After Sawant was arrested from the accident spot late at night on Monday, he told the police that another driver had parked the bus outside the station at the end of his shift. When Sawant took over and turned on the ignition, he realised that the previous driver had left the bus in the ‘drive’ mode and not the ‘neutral’ mode; the bus zoomed ahead, and when Sawant saw more than 100 people waiting in the queue on the footpath, he swerved sharply to the right to avoid higher fatalities, he claimed.

“We have, however, received information that Sawant drove the bus briefly before the incident too and are in the process of verifying it,” an officer familiar with the case said.

Accordingly, the police are examining CCTV footage of the accident spot and recording statements of other BEST bus drivers who were at the spot around that time, the officer noted.

For now though, Sawant is the only accused in the case, said senior inspector Pawar.

“It was his responsibility to ensure that the electric bus was in the proper mode before he pressed the start button,” said Pawar. “We will record the statement of the previous driver to ascertain the sequence of events.”