Bus accident in Jajpur: Driver faces reckless driving charges

Tuesday marked the day after a bus headed for Kolkata toppled over a flyover, injuring forty people and killing five. The driver of the bus was charged with reckless driving and carelessness.

The accident occurred on Monday evening when the bus headed for Kolkata went off an overpass on NH-16 in the Jajpur district.

Bus driver Harekrushna Das (40), who suffered serious injuries, was brought to the intensive care unit of SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack along with four other patients, according to sources in the transport department. After Das is released from the hospital, he will be taken into custody.

The bus driver was charged by Dharmasala police under many sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 279 (driving a vehicle negligently, endangering human life) and 337 (causing injury to any person by committing any act so rashly or carelessly as to imperil human life). Lal Mohan Sethi, additional transport commissioner for road safety, said that the bus was in fine working order and that a new fitness certificate had been granted only a month before. According to him, there is a possibility that the bus driver’s carelessness caused the collision.

It’s possible that he was chatting on his phone or attempted to pass a car from the left side while driving. To determine the accident’s cause, further research is being done, he said.

VK Pandian, the chairman of 5T and a leader of the BJD, visited the hospital early on Tuesday to check on the wounded passengers. He promised them all assistance.

Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, has already expressed her sorrow over the incident. She claimed on social media that the WB government had been in rescue and support mode from the start.

We have sent personnel, supplies, and ambulances to the scene in order to provide rescue aid since a number of the wounded and some of the deceased are from WB. To transport the rescued persons back, vehicles have been sent. Hospital beds at Medinipur Medical College are restricted. The next of kin of the deceased and the wounded will get compensation in accordance with the regulations, she said on X.

WB Fire and Emergency Services Minister Sujit Bose was assigned by Banerjee to work with Odisha authorities to arrange help.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said on Monday that the families of every state dead will get an ex gratia of Rs 3 lakh.

In the meanwhile, there were two other accidents that day in the districts of Keonjhar and Angul that resulted in three fatalities and twenty injuries. Twenty passengers were injured in a sequence of incidents on NH-20 near Durapada Chhak in Keonjhar, while two people died. The unfortunate bus driver also died when his vehicle collided with another on NH-55 near Jarapada in Angul.