Now, overloaded vehicle claims cop’s life

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 27

In yet another tragic accident, an overloaded truck claimed a cop’s life near the Paragpur check-post early this morning.

The deceased was identified as Karamjit Singh who was on duty at the check-post. According to witnesses, at around 4.20 am, the overloaded truck, filled with tomatoes, lost control on the vehicle and fell on Karamjit. Singh’s both legs got severed and he died on the spot.

The police arrested driver the Dilip Sahni, a resident of Vishvakarma town in Ludhiana.

This is the second such incident where a cop was killed in a road accident. On Saturday, a woman sub-inspector Jagdeep Kaur was killed by an overspeeding car near Chunmun Chowk.

Police chief orders strict action

Deeply perturbed over the death of two cops in road accidents here, the Police Commissioner Arpit Shukla held a meeting with senior officials early this morning and asked them to crack a whip on the overloading and overspeeding vehicles flouting traffic norms. Following the directions, senior officials, including DCP Navjot Mahal, ADCP Jasvir Singh and ACP Digvijay Kapil reached at prominent locations in the city and began challaning the vehicles that were found overloaded.

27 vehicles impounded, challans of Rs 7 lakh issued

Till evening, traffic police impounded 27 vehicles, mainly tippers overloaded with sand and gravel, allegedly bought through illegal mining. Challans worth Rs 7 lakhs were issued within two hours of the drive. Former DTO and present ADC General GS Multani too joined the drive and proved helpful to the cops in the absence of the District Transport Officer (DTO), a post abolished by the Congress regime.

Also, around 15 tippers were under scanner of the police for illegal mining. The city has witnessed around four deaths caused due to the overturning of overloaded tipper since December last year. While a 19-year-old boy died on the BSF chowk in December last year, three members of a family were killed on Sunday night when an overloaded tipper, filled with gravel, fell on them while taking a turn near PAP Chowk.

City needs Road Safety -10 project

Owing to the lack of coordination among three state departments — Health, Traffic Police and Transport — the World Health Organisation (WHO) had shifted its pilot project on road safety, “Drunken Driving and Wear Helmet”, from Jalandhar to Vizag in Andhra Pradesh around nine years ago.

Jalandhar, along with Hyderabad, was selected by the international organisation from India, as both cities reported the maximum number of accidental deaths and other traffic violations from across the country.

The Road Safety-10 project was initiated by the UN in collaboration with several international agencies like the WHO, John Hopkins University and Global Road Safety Partner (GRSP). It is being implemented in 10 countries, including India.

The UN was reportedly upset with the lackadaisical approach of the state government. It had not mentioned Punjab’s performance in its global report on RS-10 project (2012-13), but had lauded the efforts by the Hyderabad police, saying “It has increased enforcement and penalties for drink-drive plus introduced re-education programmes for offenders.”

Traffic police reeling under staff, infrastructure crunch

Despite receiving over Rs 3 crore as fine from traffic violators, the traffic department is facing a severe staff and infrastructure crunch. Though the department was only given 70 constables to regulate traffic with over 12 lakh population in the city, the Jalandhar Police Commissioner has deployed 100 more cops to strengthen the department further.

Also, the traffic police have no mechanism to check the speed or overloading of a vehicle. The department does not even have a single speedometer till date. On Monday night too, an overspeeding car hit a boy near Lamma Pind Chowk, killing him on the spot.