Unnao Survivor Would Be Dead If Not For Rain: Eyewitnesses

Raebareli residents open up witnessing the accident and how they tried helping the survivor.

The truck continues to be at the spot of the collision in Rae Bareilly, UP. The blackened number plate is visible too.

(Photo: Aishwarya S Iyer/The Quint)

“Gaadi ki aage waali side pe aag lagi hui thi, isliye log aage jaane se katra rahain the. Agar tez baarish nahi ho rahi hoti toh sab mar jaate. (The front of the car was on fire, which is why people were reluctant to get close. If it hadn’t been raining that day everyone would be dead.”)

30-year-old Arjun Yadav, an eyewitness to the car-truck collision in the Unnao rape case who runs a betel kiosk barely 20 meters away from the site told The Quint. A white Swift, owned by the Unnao rape survivor’s lawyer, collided with a truck on 28 July in UP’s Raebareli.

There are two dhabas and a few kiosks within a 100 metre radius of the site of collision.(Photo: Aishwarya S Iyer/The Quint)

While the driver and conductor fled from the spot, the two aunts of the rape survivor died and the lawyer and the survivor herself are currently being treated at Lucknow’s KGMU hospital. They are not entirely out of danger yet.

Too caught up to read? Listen to the full story here.

The Quint visited the spot of the collision, and met the local shop and kiosk owners to ask them how the aftermath of the collision played out before them.

The number of accidents on the road is very high as it bends like a blind turn, the locals said. There are no speed-breakers and there are trees which block the view too, they said.

“Just about two months ago, there was an accident between a Bolero and a bike. Two boys on the bike died on the spot. They were from my village,” Harilal Anand, a farmer, from Pure Mahipat village said. However everyone agrees they’ve never seen an accident this bad.

The truck continues to stand at the spot of the collision. It can’t be moved the locals say, as the axle is broken.(Photo: Aishwarya S Iyer/The Quint)

There are a few shops, and two dhabas, about 100 metres from the site of collision. Since it was raining, there were about 50 people in total, taking shelter from the rain.

The car had caught fire. “None of us went ahead then,” Harilal said adding that a few people started dialling 100 (police) right away.

Arjun said, once the fire subsided, the locals went to check on the car. The woman sitting in the front had fallen out of the window shield on the road. She was between the truck and the burning car and was crying aloud in pain. She had hurt her right hand, he said. “The two women at the back were pulled out easily as the doors were not jammed. But we took the longest to get the lawyer out. We were getting scared, someone got a metal rod, someone was trying to break the glass completely, someone was pulling hard on the handle.”

This is one of the benches where two of victims of the car accident were kept.(Photo: Aishwarya S Iyer/The Quint)

It took fifteen minutes to get him out. “We are being told he is still battling for his life in hospital now. That is good. We didn’t think he would survive,” Arjun said.

The four of them were picked up and put on benches at the biggest dhaba.

“We did not give any of them water. We were scared that if they die because they can’t drink it, we will be held responsible,” 24-year-old driver Pushpen Yadav said.

There must have been around 50 locals in the area by then but the driver of the truck was nowhere to be seen. “In the time that we were waiting for the fire to extinguish, they must have run away from the other side onto the fields,” Yadav says.

The other two victims were kept on this bench. They were not given water as the locals were scared this could kill them.(Photo: Aishwarya S Iyer/The Quint)

When the police car arrived (in response to the locals’ call) the locals knew this was not just any accident. “We got to know by then that this was the Sengar case. First, only the rape survivor was taken into their vehicle. Ten minutes later, a magic van came and took the other three. First they were taken to the Raebareli hospital and then moved to KGMU in Lucknow.”

While the truck continues to stand at the site of collision, the car was towed about an hour later.

The collision case has been shifted back to Lucknow a day after the SC asked for the case to be transferred to Delhi.