A fish vendor was killed and several people were hurt on Sunday afternoon when a speeding dumper lost control on the Varanasi-Azamgarh road and ploughed through Chamarha market in Cholapur, police said. The heavy vehicle ran over his roadside stall before smashing into a cattle-feed shop.
The dead man was identified as Vikas Sonkar, son of Rajkumar, a resident of Goppur village. He was in his twenties and sold fish from a small stall on the edge of the road at Chamarha, which is also known locally as Hanumanganj market. The area falls under the Chandapur outpost of Cholapur police station.
According to the police account of the crash, the dumper was travelling from the Varanasi side towards Azamgarh when the driver lost control. The vehicle broke through a roadside drain, struck an electricity pole, ran over the fish stall and kept moving for roughly 40 feet before it came to a stop inside a shop selling khali-chuni, the oilcake and bran mix that farmers buy as cattle feed.
Vikas died on the spot. The impact also caught people standing in and around the feed shop. Among the injured are shop owner Satish Jaiswal, 60, his worker Soti Harijan, who was described as seriously hurt, and Chillu Yadav, a porter from Gosaipur Mohanv. A teenage boy from Goppur who had come to buy fish was also badly injured.
Police and people from the market carried the injured to the Community Health Centre at Cholapur. Doctors there referred the more serious cases to Pt Deendayal Upadhyay Government Hospital in the city, while some families chose to move their relatives to private hospitals. Accounts of the number of injured varied through the evening, and officials had not released a final list by Sunday night.
Chandapur outpost in-charge Avinash Mishra reached the market with a police team soon after the crash. Police said the dumper had been taken into their possession and the driver detained, and that legal proceedings were under way. The driver's name had not been made public.
Anger spread quickly once word of the death reached Goppur. Villagers placed Vikas's body on the Varanasi-Azamgarh road and blocked traffic, demanding action, and the blockade carried on into the evening. Long lines of trucks, buses and cars built up on both sides of the market while police from several stations were called in to manage the crowd.
Sub-Divisional Magistrate (Sadar) Nitin Singh and Assistant Commissioner of Police (Sarnath) Vinay Kumar Dwivedi went to the site and held talks with the family and villagers to get the road reopened. What was agreed, and exactly when traffic began moving again, had not been officially confirmed when this report was filed. No statement on compensation for the family had been issued either.
Vikas leaves behind his wife, Moni, and young children. He was the middle of three brothers, and the news of his death left Goppur in mourning through Sunday night.
In road deaths of this kind, police usually send the body for post-mortem and register a case against the driver on a written complaint from the family, after which the vehicle's papers, the driver's licence and the owner's details are checked. Police have not yet said what charges will be filed, or whether speed or a mechanical fault caused the driver to lose control.
The stretch between the city and Cholapur is a busy, narrow corridor where weekly markets spill onto the road edge and heavy vehicles move through at speed, with very little room between the two. Sunday's crash is the latest in a run of serious accidents involving heavy vehicles around the district. Last month a speeding truck killed two people on the Chandpur-Akelwan road in Lohta, and days later three trucks collided on NH-19 near Mirzamurad, trapping a driver in his cabin for about two hours.
Smaller vehicles have been involved too. On 28 September a cyclist died in an alleged hit-and-run by a Magic van in Chaubeupur. For the traders who set up each day at Chamarha, Sunday's crash has raised an old worry again: there is little standing between their stalls and the traffic.
