DME accident: Kin of victims blame truck driver, authorities for loss

Family members of the five victims of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME) incident said that the “truck driver was primarily responsible for the accident

Family members of the five victims of the Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME) incident said that the “truck driver was primarily responsible for the accident. They also blamed authorities as the truck was being driven on the wrong side of the expressway.

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“The driver was driving the truck in a negligent manner on the wrong side, and we lost five members of our family. The driver is primarily responsible. But somehow, the authorities are also responsible as they did not notice the traffic violation,” said Pappu Kumar, brother of one of the victims, Sonu Kumar.

NHAI, traffic cops clueless

Mudit Garg, project director, National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), said on Tuesday, “Checking traffic violations is the responsibility of the traffic police, and they must take action against drivers taking the wrong side or over speeding vehicles... It could be possible that the driver had taken a U-turn midway, along the expressway, to take the wrong side. We have 38 CCTV cameras along the expressway (from Phase 4 in Dasna to Meerut) and those are connected to our control room at Kashi toll plaza. We will check the CCTV footage to understand what had actually happened.”

“We provide the traffic violation data to the Ghaziabad traffic police, but they have not been able to establish links with our systems,” Garg said, adding that Phase 2 (from UP-Gate to Dasna) along the DME has 40 CCTVs which are connected to the Dasna control room, but the link for data transfer is yet to be established between the NHAI and the Ghaziabad traffic police systems.

Ramanand Kushwaha, superintendent of police (traffic), said, “We have checked footage from four CCTV cameras, but could not spot the driver entering the expressway via the wrong side... An investigation is underway,” said Ramanand Kushwaha, superintendent of police (traffic).

“Almost 99% of the work to establish a link with the NHAI system is complete, and it will be operational within a couple of days. Once this is done, we will be able to issue challans to violators along the DME on the basis of traffic data provided by the NHAI,” Kushwaha said on Tuesday evening.