Image Source: tribuneindia

A bus allegedly owned by a Shiromani Akali Dal leader ran over a 12-year-old girl at Channu village in Lambi Assembly, Punjab, killing her on spot. After a long strife between the locals and the police that involved lathicharge and firing of over 50 rounds, a case was filed and the accused driver was arrested.

Class 8 student, Arshdeep Kaur, was crushed under a private bus while she was standing at the roadside at around 5:30 pm on Friday. The bus was allegedly owned by SAD’s Gidderbaha constituency chairman, Hardeep Singh Dhillon. Following the incident, the locals vandalized and torched the bus and blocked the road with the girl’s body in the middle demanding the arrest of the accused driver who had fled the spot. Allegedly, the police refused to register a case against the accused at first.

The police lathicharged and fired more than 50 rounds in the air to discharge the villagers at midnight. Allegedly, they also forcibly took away the body of the girl to the Civil Hospital in Malaut. Reports say that the protesters also hurled stones at the policemen and fired in the air. A few villagers and 3 policemen sustained injuries in the incident.

Finally, the police registered two cases: one against the accused driver and another against the unidentified protesters for attacking the police team. The dharna was lifted at about 3 pm, after the accused driver, Baljit Singh, was reportedly arrested on Saturday and charged with negligence causing death.

Certain sources, however, said that the family of the victim had been offered financial help after which they let the post-mortem get done. On Friday evening, the bus owner Dhillon had stated that he would provide financial help to the family. The case was, however, sent to the CM’s office for financial help as per policy.