According to the witnesses, none of the convoy staff even took note of the accident and sped away on their way to the Celebration Hotel for a function scheduled there.
RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government on Sunday promised to probe the death of a five-year-old girl allegedly crushed by the speeding convoy of senior party leader Murli Manohar Joshi whose office denied the charge even as police arrested the driver of the vehicle.
Witnesses and relatives of the victim, Saraswati, said she was crushed to death by one of the piloting vehicles of Joshi's convoy at around 8 pm on Saturday on the busy Station Road here.
According to the witnesses, none of the convoy staff even took note of the accident and sped away on their way to the Celebration Hotel for a function scheduled there, leaving the girl writhing in a pool of blood.
More than an hour after the accident, she was taken to a government hospital where she was declared dead.
Moreover, police had refused to file a complaint when the victim's relatives and witnesses approached a police station and they were baton-charged, they said.
Joshi was on a daylong visit to this Chhattisgarh capital to attend an event organised by a local Hindi daily.
The former union minister's office in New Delhi denied any such incident. "There was no such incident. I checked with Joshiji. No such accident took place (involving) his convoy," the MP's personal assistant Pradeep Jain said.
The state government, on the other hand, refused to comment whether the former BJP president's convoy was involved in the accident.
"I came to know about the accident today. It is quite unfortunate. The government will collect details," Chhattisgarh's Home Minister Ramvichar Netam said from Bilaspur over telephone.
By late on Sunday, police arrested Prem Chandra, driver of the Maruti Gypsy that crushed Saraswati to death, and also seized the vehicle that was at the front of the convoy.
The opposition Congress criticised Joshi's staff for the alleged misbehaviour.
"Joshi might not be aware of the incident but the BJP's state government must have registered an offence and booked the culprit. It was shocking to know that police baton-charged some protesters who blocked the road soon after the incident and even refused to register a complaint," state Congress general secretary Ramesh Varlyani said.
Netam responded to the criticism by saying that "the issue should not be politicised. The guilty will be punished and I will supervise the matter. The government will grant compensation to the family of the deceased after completing some formalities."
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