Killer lorries mow down 3 in 24 hours

Three persons, including a seven-year-old girl and a woman police constable, have been killed in separate mishaps involving lorries near the city.

After a tipper lorry ran over the little girl and the driver escaped after abandoning the vehicle, angry residents set fire to the lorry in Ettaiyapuram village in Kancheepuram district on Saturday, police said.

Lakshya (7) of Ettaiyapuram village in Naduveerapattu panchayat, was crossing a road to go to a shop to buy brown paper to wrap her notebooks when the empty tipper lorry heading to a stone quarry ran over her.

Police said the girl’s mother Ramya had helped her cross the road and returned home when she heard her child screaming. The woman rushed back and saw her daughter lying in a pool of blood. Lakshya was rushed to a private hospital where she was declared brought dead. Her body was later sent to Chromepet GH for postmortem. Her father Ganesan, who also owns a lorry, was away when the accident took place. Meanwhile, the lorry driver did not stop even after he heard the girl cry and halted only in a stone quarry almost one kilometre away and escaped, police said.

Angry neighbours rushed to the quarry and brought the lorry back to the spot with the help of another driver and set it on fire.

When fire force personnel from Tambaram rushed to the spot to douse the fire, the residents blocked them and later staged a road roko at the Somamangalam-Tambaram road.

Residents claimed that the stretch was quite risky as around 1,000 lorries use the road to reach quarries nearby. Most of the lorries are driven recklessly, they alleged. Police said they have registered a case under IPC section 304 A (causing death by negligence) and investigations were on to nab the driver.

Cop Killed on way to duty

Vetriselvi (27), a woman constable attached to Selaiyur police station, was on her way to report for duty on a two-wheeler, when she was hit and killed by a lorry on the busy GST Road near Irumbuliyur.  The lorry hit her two-wheeler from behind and the constable was crushed under the wheels, police said. Her father Palanisamy is a sub-inspector at Peerkankarani police station.

Regular commuters and locals claimed that the stretch was a bottleneck and many accidents have taken place there earlier. Meanwhile, on Friday night, Kirubakaran (28), a marketing executive from Uthukottai, Tiruvallur was on his two-wheeler at Maduravoyal Bypass when a lorry hit his vehicle. The man was thrown off the vehicle and died on the spot, police said.