Victim in ‘hit-and-run’ involving Assamese actor Nandini Kashyap: College student who assisted Guwahati civic body to fund education

“Everyone knew that he was very bright. His family was very proud when he got a star mark (above 75%) in his class 10 examinations. But he was not from a very well-to-do family. His uncle worked with the Guwahati Municipal Corporation, so he assisted his uncle with the work to support his education. He studied by day and worked by night,” said his family friend Shahid Haque.

It was while he was out for work at night to repair streetlights that he was run down by an SUV in Guwahati’s Dakhingaon area on July 25 at around 3 am. He succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday and actor Nandini Kashyap was arrested for culpable homicide in the early hours of Wednesday, after days of public outrage over the hit-and-run incident.

According to Guwahati’s DCP (Traffic) Jayanta Sarathi Borah, an initial case had been registered at Dispur police station for the bailable offences of voluntarily causing hurt, act endangering human life and rash driving. He said that after Haque died on Tuesday evening, police moved court to get the non-bailable offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder added to the FIR, after which Kashyap was arrested at around 1.30 am on Wednesday.

Until then, while Kashyap had been summoned by police for questioning, she had not been detained by police. With the police coming under scrutiny for this, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday claimed this was a “strategy”.

“When the actress knocked down the man, if we had arrested her then itself, we would have had to give her bail that night itself. So, it was a strategy on the part of the police, because we knew that the patient was serious. Until death occurs or we cannot give a grievous injury report, it is (not) a non-bailable case. So, the police did what they had to do strategically. Now, she has been put in lockup. We will file a chargesheet and it will be a case of culpable homicide,” he told reporters.

Samiul had initially been taken to the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital for treatment on the night of the incident, but was later moved by his family to a prominent private hospital in the city for treatment. Shahid said that the family had struggled to arrange the finances for this.

“After there was no encouraging news for two days, the family decided that even though they aren’t well-to-do, they could not let him die and transferred him to a private hospital. They sold some land they had in the village. His brother and I even posted images and videos of the incident on social media to ask for financial help from the public. People were very shocked by the incident, and a lot of people sent us money in support of Samiul,” the family friend said.