July 23, 2008

Run crusade for the family of a dead ‘outsider’ cabbie

It was the North Indian taxi drivers who bore the brunt of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s tirade against ‘outsiders’ in February. Now, in a sudden volte-face, that very party is fighting for the family of a cab driver from Uttar Pradesh.

Kishanpal Singh, 24, a driver with Meru cab services, died in an accident on Saturday. Following his death, MNS stalled the operation of the cab service and forced it off roads demanding that Singh’s family be compensated. They also claimed that the company should ensure the safety of the 700-odd Meru drivers.

Interestingly, most of the cab drivers employed by Meru are North Indians.

However, when contacted MNS vice president Arafat Sheikh claimed that they were fighting for Singh and his family on “humanitarian grounds.”

Three days post the incident, the party has alleged that the company is not willing to support the driver’s family. Sheikh said, “Officials from Meru cab are not willing to speed up the insurance process for Singh’s family. On Monday, we had called a meeting of all Meru drivers and invited the company officials to discuss the issue but they did not turn up.

We are going to hold a meeting on Wednesday and if they don’t attend the meeting we will have to resort to undemocratic methods.”

However, Harsh Mehta, PRO for Meru, claimed that MNS did not invite them for any meeting. “We had gone to Singh’s residence with a cheque of Rs3 lakh as compensation. But we could not give it to them because MNS activists didn’t let the head of the family meet the company officials,” he said.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1175047