Two forest rangers were killed while a woman warden went missing after a trial electric vehicle they were in met with an accident in Uttarakhand's Rajaji Tiger Reserve, reported news agency PTI. Five others in the vehicle were injured and were admitted to a hospital with injuries.
The driver of the vehicle has claimed that the forest officials forced him to overload and speed up during the trial of the all-terrain electric SUV.
A footage of the accident, shared by news agency PTI, shows the EV going initially on a normal speed on a stretch of a road. A person, apprently the driver, could be heard asking someone to let off some people from the car. "Kuch logon ko utarna padega sir... risk nahi lena hai sir, jhatke me gir gaye..."the person could be heard as saying. (Some people need to get off the car, can't take risk, what if someone falls during a crash...)
On Wednesday, Uttarakhand police registered an FIR in the matter but the Bengaluru-based EV startup Pravaig Dynamics, whose trial vehicle was involved in the accident, sought registration of a fresh FIR saying the one registered by Uttarakhand police ignored critical facts, as per the PTI report.
In a statement, the firm said that the FIR overlooked critical facts, including trial being authorised by the forest department, and that forest department officials overloaded the trial EV and took it off the approved boundary for trial runs.
The driver, Ashbin Biju who is a BE Mechanical Engineer, also separately stated that the forest officials forced him to overload and speed up during the trial.
The statement also said that the first trial undertaken by the driver on Monday morning, approved by the forest department of Uttarakhand, took place without any accident.
But during the second round of demonstration in the afternoon, forest officials forced him to take nine personnel (a total of 10, including the driver) against the seating capacity of eight (including driver), as per the driver's statement.
The firm claimed that they received due permission from state forest department for the test drive only within the Rajaji National Park.
"That permission did not allow forest department officials to violate the authorised capacity of our demonstration vehicles (of 8 pax). The forest officials were not allowed to instruct our test driver to trespass speed limits," the statement said.
"Forest personnel (some in uniform) not only forced our test driver Ashbin Biju (BE Mechanical), to violate the boundary conditions, some of them chose to perch dangerously on the back bumper of our demonstration car and overloaded it, forcing it to go off balance." These material facts, it said, are not being included in the FIR.
"We request that under law and principles of natural justice, Uttarakhand Police records a fresh FIR with all the relevant facts," the statement said.
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