Mumbai:
At a press conference on Thursday, BEST union leader Sharad Rao came down heavily on the BEST administration, city police and sections of the media for unfairly criticising late BEST bus driver Atmaram Gaikwad for the accident in Bandra on Monday which killed a three-year-old girl.
Rao also demanded that the BEST administration pay Rs25 lakh as compensation to Gaikwad's family, allow them to continue their stay in the staff quarters, provide employment to one family member and register a case of murder against the three arrested who were part of the mob, which beat Gaikwad after the accident.
Rao said that Gaikwad, who was to retire in three months, belonged to the '81 batch and in his 30-year career had no accident record. This shows that he was not reckless. More importantly, he added, all the "circumstantial evidence" pointed out that there could not have been any possibility of driving rashly at the accident site. He questioned the city police for registering a case against Gaikwad in spite of not having investigated the issue.
Talking about the BEST toll-free number, Rao insisted that the BEST administration should withdraw it as 90% complaints made on the number were found to be "bogus". When asked why he did not consider engaging with the administration in strengthening regulation of the complaint system instead of adopting a rigid stand, he insisted that the helpline will be misused against BEST drivers and conductors and so there was no point of continuing with it.
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