Bengaluru Police book car driver, civic agency engineers following drowning of techie at an underpass

Bengaluru: Police have registered a case against the engineers of the Bengaluru civic agency and the car driver who took the vehicle into the flooded underpass in the city leading to the death of a 22-year-old IT staffer and endangering the lives of five other family members of the victim, who were later rescued.

The Halasuru Gate police on Sunday booked a case based on a complaint lodged by Batula Sandeep, who is the relative of the victim B Bhanurekha.

Meanwhile, driver Harish on Monday said he was on the way to Hosur Road via City Municipal Corporation office when his car got trapped in the flooded underpass on Sunday.

Harish said he saw an autorickshaw and a car crossing the underpass. When he was weighing the possibility of crossing it, an autorickshaw driver advised him to go ahead. ”That autorickshaw driver stopped but insisted that I should go, so I crossed… In just two minutes the entire underpass was filled with water and the car’s engine got switched off,” he told reporters.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday visited the St Martha’s Hospital where the victim and the survivors were taken. He also announced a compensation of Rs five lakh to the next of kin of the deceased.

After the incident, the underpass has been shut for vehicular movement.

Following the tragedy, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike today started an audit of all the underpasses in the city.

”We are undertaking an audit of all the underpasses so that such incidents should not occur in future. We are closing those underpasses, which are not fit to use,” Chief Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath told reporters.

Nath said he has given directions to the Chief Engineer of the civic agency to see that water drains out from these underpasses through the stormwater drains.

According to him, such an exercise has been undertaken at 18 underpasses in the city.