Pune: The Baner police have arrested an autorickshaw driver (23), who hit a retired law firm staffer near Balewadi Phata, from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh five months after the accident.On July 20, after withdrawing cash from an ATM near Balewadi Phata, just 500m from a hospital, 63-year-old Gopal Wagh was crossing the road to return home when an autorickshaw hit him. As a crowd began to gather, the autorickshaw driver, Israel Gurjar, under the pretext of taking him to a hospital, drove him to Range Hills and abandoned him in a secluded area. Wagh’s sons, who were searching for him, filed a missing person complaint at Baner police station later that night. The police found his lying motionless the next day.He was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead. Senior inspector Chandrashekhar Sawant of Baner police told TOI, “We tracked the auto to a parking spot in Sangvi. We also traced its owner. The owner told us driver’s name and cellphone number. The driver had left for his native place in UP by then. Our teams frequently visited parks of UP and Delhi. Despite all the efforts, we were not able to track him.”He added, “After fleeing from Pune, Gurjar kept changing his cellphone number and started working as a carpenter. However, he made a mistake and called his father, whose cellphone was under surveillance. It revealed his location in Delhi. He later moved to Garh Mukteshwar. We arrested him from a spot at Garh Mukteshwar near Meerut and brought him to Pune on Saturday after securing his transit remand.”“He had secured a SIM in his father’s name. While working as a carpenter, he kept shifting from one place to another. He usually kept his cellphone switched off,” he said.Police registered an FIR under sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of an offence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sections of the Motor Vehicles Act against the driver. “We have also decided to take legal action against the autorickshaw owner for leasing his vehicle to Gurjar,” he said.The accident had raised questions about why no one from the crowd accompanied the injured senior citizen to the hospital. “My father was registered at Jupiter Hospital, just 600m away from the site of the accident, so that he could receive immediate care in case of an emergency. It was all for nothing,” said Amit Wagh (35), Gopal’s son, who works as a software engineer.He said if the driver had left his father there, the crowd might have helped him get admitted to a hospital. “I don’t understand why nobody went with him in the autorickshaw. Was it fear, lack of time, or just not wanting to be bothered? He might have survived. What has happened to humanity?” Amit said.
