An 18-year-old man was killed on Thursday morning after the cycle he was riding was hit by a speeding Punjab Roadways bus in Sector 31.
Police said though the driver of the killer bus managed to flee with the vehicle, he was later tracked down and arrested.
Police identified the victim as Om Parkash Goswami, who they said was a native of Bageshwar in Uttarakhand but had shifted to Chandigarh some months ago to pursue higher studies.
Goswami, the police said, was working two jobs to make ends meet — as a watchman at Sector 31’s 3BRD Air Force Station at night and at a canteen during the day.
Investigators said that the driver of the bus, Sukhwinder Singh, 36, a resident of Nawanshahr was identified on the basis of CCTV footage and arrested on Friday.
The police said that Goswamu sustained severe head injuries after being hit by the bus and was profusely bleeding when he was rushed to GMCH-32, where doctors declared him brought dead. A case under sections 279 (negligent driving), 304A (death due to negligent driving) of IPC was registered at Sector 31 police station.
“He [Om Parkash Goswami] had lost his mother when he was barely five years old. His father is a small time farmer back in Bageshwar in Uttarakhand. He completed his Class 12 there and then came to live with me in Chandigarh. He worked two jobs here so that he could continue his higher studies. He was planning to enroll himself in a graduation course from an open university soon. We are completely devastated by his loss,” said Rattan Nath Goswami, an uncle of the victim. Nath, who lives in Sector 9, left for Uttarakhand with Goswami’s body on Friday for the last rites.
Assistant Sub Inspector Birender Singh, the officer who has been tasked with probing the case said that the bus driver had been arrested.
“We tracked him down with the help of CCTV camera footage. Sukhwinder initially tried to mislead investigators by claiming that the cyclist had been hit by an autorickshaw and not a bus. However, we scanned the CCTV footage and found no autorickshaws on that stretch when teh accident took place,” Birender said.
He added that the body was handed over to the family on Friday after an autopsy at GMCH-32.