LUCKNOW: Eight major accidents involving heavy vehicles occurred in the city this year. They left eight persons dead and 46 injured. But thanks to lax policing, the accused drivers and owners of the vehicles were either acquitted by courts owing to lack evidence or remain untraceable till date.The police laxity can be gauged from the fact that in most of the cases cops are yet to file the chargesheet in the courts.There are two more glaring lapses in police investigations. One, as per law, the vehicle involved in accident must be sent for a technical inspection. But this rule was followed in just one out of the eight cases reported above.Second, rules stipulate that police must also trace the owner of the vehicles involved in accidents, check their registration papers and grill them about who was driving the vehicle at the time of accident. If they fail to give satisfactory replies then the owners too should be booked under the IPC Sections of rash driving in public and causing grievous injury. But these rules too have been ignored by Lucknow Police.In the Gosainganj accident, where a school bus crushed a teacher to death and left her sister injured, the police are yet to send the bus for technical inspection. The errant driver remains on the run. SO Nagram Sujeet Upadhaya told TOI: “A probe is underway. We have seized the vehicle and it takes at least 15 days to carry out the technical inspection and only then can we fix the responsibility of the driver.” In another case, passersby had nabbed the errant driver Rakesh Mishra and handed him over to the police. But the cops were unable to prove charges against him and he was acquitted by a court.In the accident which occurred on Ashok Marg, the Hazratganj police only seized the vehicle. Then SHO Hazratganj Anand Shahi was looking after the case.He said the bus was owned by a person based in Rajasthan . We could not send any cop to Rajathan as there was no provsiion to bear the travelling costs,” said Shahi.ASP (police lines/Gomtinagar) Chakresh Mishra told TOI that technical inspection is only carried out after a report is asked by the police station concerned. “In Hussainganj accident case, we received a request from the police station and then sent a sub-inspector (motor terminal) from the police lines. But we did not get any such requests in other cases,” said Mishra.

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