Bus driver gets 190 yrs in jail for crash that killed 22 in MP

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TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bhopal:

02.02.2022

Six years after a bus accident in Madhya Pradesh’s Panna killed 22 people, many of them migrant labourers, a local court sentenced the driver to190 years of imprisonment — 10 years each on 19 counts. The sentences will run separately, said the court order. This is perhaps the first time that a driver in a fatal accident has got such a prison sentence.

Driver Shamshuddin, 47, was convicted for culpable homicide and rash driving. The bus owner was also punished with 10 years’ imprisonment, said assistant public prosecutor officer Kapil Vyas. On May 4, 2015, a passenger bus carrying 65 people plunged into a dry canal near Madla hill and caught fire, killing 22 people and injuring a dozen.

During the investigation, it was found that the emergency exit was blocked by iron rods and an addi- tional seat was mounted in its place. Passengers were trapped in the inferno and those killed were burnt beyond recognition.

Shamshuddin was accused of driving recklessly despite passengers’ requests to slow down. He and the bus owner Gyandendra Pandey are residents of Satna, where the bus was headed. The accused were booked under IPC sections 304 (a) (death due to negligence), 304 (culpable homicide), 279 and 337 (both for rash driving), and under section 184 of the Motor Vehicles Act. After the investigation was over, the trial started in the court of special judge R P Sonkar.