NEW DELHI: For Darab Singh (34), it was supposed to be another routine bike-taxi ride. On Monday morning, he picked up 22-year-old DU graduate Hrishita Lahon from Sheikh Sarai to take her to Noida.But as they reached southeast Delhi’s Ashram flyover, the commute turned into a horrific tragedy that left Lahon dead and Singh severely injured.Singh remembers the bus behind them, and then the impact. “A few minutes earlier, I had left the bus behind. Then the same bus hit us and dragged us along,” he said. According to Singh, he and Lahon were dragged for 50-100 metres.The only detail he clearly remembers about the bus is its colour — sky blue.Singh said after the crash, he could not see anything for at least a minute. He could only hear voices around him. When he regained consciousness, he saw Lahon lying near the bike, bleeding.“The bus was being driven at high speed. I suffered injuries on my legs, knees and hands. Both our helmets were broken,” he said. “I was riding on the side, but the vehicle did not slow down.”Singh said their phones were thrown almost 10 metres away due to the impact. Some commuters picked them up and kept them on their bags, he recalled.Then came a stranger whom Singh remembers as one of the first people to help them.“A woman came… I remember her asking someone to bring her car and taking us to hospital. She kept speaking to the injured woman in English,” he said.Police learnt of the accident through a medico-legal case (MLC) received from a hospital around 12.58 pm. During the inquiry, they found Lahon had been shifted to another hospital in Sarita Vihar in view of her critical condition. However, she succumbed during treatment around 2.05pm. Her statement could not be recorded, police said.An officer said there was no CCTV coverage on the stretch of the flyover where the crash occurred. A case was registered and police are still searching for the offending vehicle.Singh, who has a daughter studying in Class V and a son in kindergarten, had only recently started working again. For nearly three years, he had been unable to work because of worsening allergy-related health problems and a lung infection that had affected his ability to walk.Wanting to support his family, he bought a motorcycle on instalments in Jan and started working as a bike-taxi rider the following month. He initially rode in Agra, his native place, before starting work in Delhi in March. Now unable to walk, he is staring at loss of income and an uncertain future.Singh survived Monday’s crash, but Lahon did not. A graduate of Maitreyi College, Lahon had moved from Assam to Delhi for higher studies. She was pursuing a master’s degree in sociology from Ignou and had joined an internship programme just 20 days ago.
