M. M. Joshi's Convoy Crushes Girl To Death, Then Moves On

The speeding convoy of senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi crushed a girl to death here and police baton-charged protesters while refusing to register a formal complaint.

Joshi, a former BJP president, was on a day-long visit to the state capital when one of his convoy's vehicles ran over two girls late on Saturday on Station Road while proceeding towards his hotel.

Eyewitnesses and relatives of the victim confirmed the incident. "My five-year-old daughter Saraswati had gone to see the Durga Puja festival when she was crushed to death by Joshi's convoy. The convoy staff left her writhing in a pool of blood," grief-stricken Dilip Bahadur said.

She would have been saved if they had immediately taken her to the hospital. But the people in the convoy took no notice. She was taken to a government hospital at least one hour after the accident by locals, said Dilip, who belongs to a poor family.

Saraswati's mother has been critically ill since Saturday night after she saw her daughter's body in the mortuary at a hospital here.

According to an eyewitness, the convoy hit two girls but Saraswati was tossed up in the air. The convoy, however, went ahead without pausing to take notice.