punjab

Updated: Jan 25, 2018 23:58 IST

A four-year-old girl was killed and her six-year-old cousin was grievously injured after they were run over by an SUV being driven by a Congress worker at a park in Chandigarh’s Maloya on Thursday.

The deceased has been identified as Shifa of Maloya Colony, while her cousin is Aariz.

The Congress worker, Jitender Kumar Yadav alias Mannu, 35, has been arrested. Yadav lives in the same locality, where he runs a departmental store.

In his complaint to the police, Aariz’s father Shahabuddin, who runs a beauty salon in Sector 27, alleged that Yadav was opposed to the children playing in the park where he used to park his vehicle. “He had been threatening us, and deliberately ran over the children due to his grudge against them,” he alleged.

Shifa’s father Mohammad Riaz, who also runs a beauty parlour in Sector 40, told the police that his daughter and Aariz were playing in the park, when Yadav hit them with his Mahindra XUV 500, crushing Shifa’s head under the vehicle’s tyre.

The cousins were rushed to Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) where Shifa was declared brought dead, while Aariz is undergoing treatment. She is survived by her parents and a younger brother.

“Acting on the parents’ complaints, we arrested Yadav and booked him under Sections 279 (rash driving), 304A (causing death by negligence) and 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code,” Deepak Yadav, DSP (south), said.

Yadav on the other hand told the police that he was only reversing his vehicle, when the children accidentally came in his way and got injured. While he claimed to have rushed the children to the hospital in his SUV, residents alleged otherwise.

The Congress worker’s wife had recently contested Chandigarh municipal corporation elections as an independent candidate after she was denied a ticket by the party. Police said Yadav was named an accused in a murder case in 2015, but was acquitted later.

Neighbours go up in arms

As news of girl’s death spread, residents of the area staged a protest, demanding stringent punishment for the accused. They alleged it was not an accident but a murder as Yadav had been nursing a grudge against the children’s families. The protest was lifted after police personnel pacified them, assuring strict action against the accused.