Mob sets fire to tanker for killing rider

Angered by this, a mob detained the vehicle’s driver and cleaner, who were reportedly in an inebriated condition, before setting the tanker on fire. The driver was identified as Harikrishnan (35), a resident of Kodungaiyur and the cleaner was Rajasekhar. Both of them have been arrested. 

Police said that the duo were drunk and were driving the vehicle in a rash manner. The lorry was going from KK Nagar to Vadaplani, when it fatally knocked down P Ramesh, a resident of Lakeside Street, Nesapakkam, who was on a Honda Dio two-wheeler.

Passers-by and locals, who were angered on seeing the accident, rushed to the spot and caught the driver and cleaner as they were trying to flee the spot. Since both were found to be drunk, the people started assaulting them. Locals, who had been repeatedly complaining the authorities regarding harsh driving by tankers on the stretch, torched the vehicle and subsequently squatted on the road demanding immediate action to discipline the tanker drivers. 

Police rushed to the spot and pacified the crowd. They arrested both the crew of the  sewage tanker and remanded them to judicial custody. 

This is the second such incident in the city. On Friday night, a two-year-old girl Priyadarshini, who was riding with her father on a two-wheeler was crushed under the rear wheels  of a truck at Vyasarpadi. The angry mob had torched the truck and damaged the windshields of several other trucks that were passing through the area, protesting the rash driving of truck drivers. They also engaged in a road blockade demanding the immediate arrest of the driver. However, the driver had managed to escape from the scene immediately after the accident. Police later arrested the driver Sona Ram, a native of Madhya Pradesh. 

In one of the worst cases of water tankers running over people happened in October last year, when three students of a women’s college killed on the busy road near Guindy. Two other pedestrians also suffered grievous injuries in that accident. There were appeals from various sections to initiate steps to regulate the speed of the water tankers in the city.