Samruddhi eway crash: Police nab 2 RTO officers for halting truck

The district police have booked and arrested two Regional Transport Office (RTO) officials for allegedly halting a truck on the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway which led a fatal crash which killed 12, officials said here on Monday.

The action against the RTA officers – Nitinkumar Ghanorkar and Pradeep Rathod, both Assistant Inspectors – came after a video emerged showing them halting the truck around 1 am on Sunday morning.

The ill-fated Buldhana-Nashik minibus with 33 passengers rammed into the truck in which 12 persons were killed and 23 more injured, making it the second biggest accident on the "killer" Samruddhi Expressway after the July 1 crash in Buldhana that claimed 37 lives.

Following the videos in which the Ghanorkar-Rathod are clearly visible, the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Police have booked and suspended them pending the probe.

Around 1.15 a.m. on Sunday, a minibus bound for Nashik rammed into the stationery trailer truck halted by the RTO officers for as yet unclear reasons in which 12 passengers were killed and another 23 hurt.

The Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi allies Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT), Nationalist Congress Party, and others parties like All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen, plus social activists have slammed the state government for the series of accidents that continue on the Samruddhi Eway since its inauguration 101 months ago.