The Pala police in Kottayam have cracked a hit-and-run case involving a KSRTC bus which led to the death of an inter-State worker here a few days ago.
The victim, Mahalingam, was found lying dead after being run over by an unidentified vehicle near the KSRTC bus station at Pala on May 17 night. While a preliminary investigation suggested that he had been mowed down by a heavy vehicle, a post-mortem examination later identified the tyre marks of a bus on his body.
Attempts by the police to examine CCTV visuals of the location yielded little result as the accident had taken place inside a corridor that opens to the main road from the bus station. The visuals collected from a jewellery shop located nearby was too feeble to identify the vehicle involved.
Following this, the police traced all the buses that had made a stopover at the bus station that night and subjected their tyres and mud guards to a forensic examination. “The body was found lying in a position that suggested that only those buses from a particular location could have been involved in the accident. Accordingly, all the 16 buses that made a halt at the station during that night were examined,” explained K.P. Tomson, Inspector of Police, Pala.
As the examination on these vehicles yielded no results, the police summoned five more buses that made a stopover at the station after 8 p.m. during the day. Of these, four could be subjected to a forensic examination the following day, while the lone remaining bus, a Minnal service run by the Pala depot, had already reached Kasaragod.
As soon the bus returned to Pala on Friday, the police subjected the vehicle to a forensic examination and traced the bloodstains on its rear wheels. Based on the findings, a notice has been sent to its driver and he will soon be arrested, said officials.
“We had limited time to prove the case as the evidence could be easily destroyed in such cases. Had the bus undergone a water service at Kasaragod, we might not have been able to crack the case,” said Mr. Tomson.
