Raigad bus accident: University sends sole survivor on forced leave, but cops give him ‘clean chit’

On July 28, a bus carrying 31 passengers had fallen into an 800-feet deep gorge while crossing the Ambenali Ghat on the Poladpur-Mahabaleshwar Road.

The incident came to light after the survivor, Prakash Desai called the police and another university employees from the cellphone of a passerby. (Express photo by Pavan Khengre)

Prakash Sawant-Desai, the sole survivor of the Dapoli mishap, has been sent on forced leave by authorities of the Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth. The university took the decision after a group of about 250 people, including relatives of those who died in the accident near Poladpur, came to the university headquarters on Tuesday, demanding that Sawant-Desai be sacked.

On July 28, a bus carrying 31 passengers had fallen into an 800-feet deep gorge while crossing the Ambenali Ghat on the Poladpur-Mahabaleshwar Road. Thirty of the passengers were employees of the Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth, located in Dapoli.

Sawant-Desai was the only person who managed to survive the accident. He said he was sitting in the driver’s cabin, on the left-hand side seat, when the bus slipped on the muddy road and fell into the gorge. He said that as the windshield of the bus had broken due to the impact of the accident, he reached out for the branches of a tree through the damaged glass, and managed to hold on to them while the bus fell into the valley.

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However, relatives of some of the victims, all of whom were Desai’s colleague at the university’s non-teaching wing, have expressed their doubts about the version of events given by Desai. They have alleged that Sawant-Desai was driving the bus when the accident took place and shared their doubts with police, They have also shot off a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, demanding an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the accident.

Raigad Police, however, said they have found no evidence that Sawant-Desai was driving the bus. “We have found no evidence that Sawant-Desai was driving the bus,” Raigad Superintendent of Police Anil Paraskar told The Indian Express.

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Asked whether it meant that police have absolved him of the charges levelled by the victims’ relatives, Paraskar said Sawant-Desai was never under suspicion. “But after the relatives of some victims made the allegations, we investigated the matter. We found that those who saw him, right before the vehicle fell down the gorge, did not corroborate allegations that Sawant-Desai was driving the vehicle. A video clip has also been found and it reveals that Sawant-Desai was not driving the vehicle,” said Paraskar.

On Tuesday morning, about 250 people, including relatives of the victims, local residents and political leaders, made their way into the university vice-chancellor’s office and demanded that Sawant-Desai be sacked. “It was a large mob comprising about 100 women. They started arguing and shouting at us. As the issue may turn serious and a law and order situation may arise, we decided to send Sawant-Desai on leave,” said Subhash Chavan, in-charge Registrar of KKV, Dapoli.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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