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Navi Mumbai: A private bus full of pilgrims travelling to Pandharpur from Dombivali on account of Ashadi Ekadashi, met with an accident on the wee hours of Tuesday after it collided with a tractor. The accident happened a little after midnight on Monday when the pilgrims were engrossed in singing the bhajans.
According to the complainant Abhimanyu Mahadev Joshi (67), he just heard a collision sound and then saw people falling over each other and realized the bus had turned turtle into a gorge. A resident of Dombivali, Joshi said, a pilgrim trip was arranged for senior citizens by a person known to him and Rs 1800 was charged per head. Around 42 people from Dombivali had assembled at Ghesargaon at around 8pm for boarding the bus and later more 12 people boarded from Dahisar.
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“After the bus came to stand still, people started helping each other to get out of the bus. We saw many were seriously injured. Within 10 minutes police had reached the spot and were sending the injured people to hospitals,” Joshi said in his complaint. Among the passengers, around seven were seriously injured and are undergoing treatment at MGM hospital while three were declared dead on arrival.
According to police, the driver of the tractor and another person on the tractor too were declared dead. The deceased have been identified as Gurunath Bapu Patil (70) from Narivaligaon, Ramdas Narayan Mukadam (70) from Nevaligaon and Hausabai Hari Patil (65) from Niljepada in Dombivali. The other two deceased from the tractor; the driver Tarvez Salauddin Ahmed (28) and another unidentified person.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde visisted the injured in MGM hospital. “We would extend all the help required for treatment. I spoke to each one of them. They feel that they were protected by Panduranga as they were going to visit him. I even met the patients in ICU and each one of them would be taken care of by the government in every way possible. The doctors team would give them best treatment required. The investigations would be done appropriately and proper actions would be taken,” Shinde said, adding, “It is a very disheartening incident that happened with the devoted Warkaris. The family of the deceased would be provided with Rs 5 lakh compensation.”
Medical Superintendent of MGM Hospital, Kamothe, said, “A total of 46 patients were brought to MGM of which 23 were male and 23 were female. Of the 46, two were declared dead. We classified all the patients into red, yellow and green categories. Red patients were six and were critical, yellow patients with lesser injuries were 15 and green patients with minor injuries were 23. We had a team of 35 doctors including neuro surgeons, general surgeons and orthopedic surgeons. One patient left the hospital without informing us, we declare him as abscond. Three others wanted to go a sper their will and we allowed to do so.”
A total of three buses full of pilgrims had left from Dombivali to Pandharpur. The pilgrims of other buses too had alighted to help the ones who met with the accident. The case has been registered against the deceased driver Ahmed for driving tractor on Mumbai-Pune expressway even as such vehicles are banned on this route. The case has been registered under the sections of Bharat Nyay Sanhita (BNS) and Motor Vehicle (MV) Act.
