The pomp and festivities of Ganesha Chaturthi ended on a tragic note indeed for a couple returning home on their 2-wheeler after celebrating the festival as the rider’s attempt to avoid a pothole on the ORR flyover near Marathalli caused the bike to skid and the woman to fall off. The woman sustained grave head injuries and died an hour later. The victim was 25-year-old Stuti Tripathi Pandey, a software engineer with an IT giant in Yemalur.

The victim’s husband, Om Prakash Tripathi finds himself not just bereaved for the loss of his wife who was pillion on the bike he was riding, but also booked for her death. The traffic police booked two BDA engineers for the death as it was their alleged negligence in failing to install adequate signs and reflectors.

Initially, a case of unnatural death was registered by the Old Airport Road traffic police. But by Friday night, they received instructions from an additional commissioner of police (traffic) MA Saleem to take up a case of death due to negligence against the rider – Stuti’s husband.

Even three weeks ago, the death of nine-year-old Likith Gowda and his mother Sunitha Gowda, while trying to avoid a gaping pothole on Tumkur Road, saw the traffic police booking a case against the Navayuga engineer-in-charge of Tumkur Road for poor maintenance of the national highway.

“As for the pothole, I have conveyed clear instructions for my men to examine and prepare a comprehensive report about how dangerous it is; and whether or not they had sent any letters or notices to the BDA to repair that stretch of the road in the recent past,” Saleem told. A detailed examination and report of the pothole in question is being prepared by the traffic police to be submitted to the top brass, based on which a decision will be taken whether or not the BDA engineer-in-charge would also be booked for Stuti’s death.