`Killer’ driver remains elusive

The 22-year-old girl, who wasn’t wearing a helmet, fell striking her head on the pavement, said police sources. According to the First Information Report, she whispered that she was Rajni from Sector 23 before she fell unconscious. Eye-witnesses said they heard her scream before she passed out. For more than two hours doctors in the PGI struggled to save her life but in vain and police say that they got news of her death at 5.45 pm. Some passersby picked her up and took her to the roadside bus-stop shed a few yards away. The police flying squad van reached the spot within four minutes and took the girl to the hospital in their Gypsy, where she succumbed to her injuries. She also had injuries on her leg, police sources said.

Some taxi-drivers who stand near the spot tried to follow the bus but lost track of it. No one noted the number of the bus. However, some eye-witnesses said the bus had a few passengers aboard. Rajni, the youngest of four sisters, was cremated here today. She was to join her diploma course in physical education in Patiala about a fortnight hence. She had taken up a job with a private firm only a couple of months ago. Sneh Lata, one of her classmates, said that she was a very "bold" girl who would often tell her parents: "I won’t ever let you feel that you don’t have a son." The police have registered a case under Sections 279, 337, and 304 A of the IPC.

Traffic Superintendent of police Balbir Singh, when contacted, said that in such cases where the person flees, it is usually with the help of some eye-witness that the culprit is nabbed.