Mob lynches driver in Jhapa

JHAPA, March 11: A driver, who urged travelers to not ride on the hood of his bus, was killed Wednesday by passengers. Enraged by the driver´s request to get off the hood, the passengers beat up him to death.



Sher Bahadur Magar, 23, was hired for driving a bus packed with members of the wedding procession of Mohan Shah from Ghailadubba of Jhapa to Govindapur of Morang. As the bus arrived in Surunga of Jhapa at sun-set, Magar asked his passengers to get in the bus to avoid accidents.



According to Santa Rai, Jhapa district president of the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Union (GEFONT), who reached the spot shortly after Magar´s death, the driver had ascended on to the bus´s hood to request the passengers not to continue travel on the hood. Instead of complying with his humble request, passengers threw Magar off the hood. “Some of them got down and thrashed him again,” Rai said.



A team of police that reached the spot by chance rescued Magar and rushed to hospital. But he was declared dead on arrival. “We have arrested three passengers but let others go,” sub-inspector Lok Bahadur Pradhan said. Locals of Surunga had pelted stones at Surunga Police Post for freeing them.



The arrested are Dambar Mishra, Sadan Sitaula and Bipin Sharma, all from Ghailadubba, the police said.



A cool driver



Magar had been into driving profession for over a decade. After his death, the Magar family has lost its sole breadwinner. Magar´s wife Ambika, who has been living in a rented room in Surunga with her one-and-a-half-year-old son, fainted as she heard of her husband´s death.



She is yet to regain consciousness. “He was a cool guy. He never indulged in a fracas with any one,” Magar´s landlord Ram Babu Maharjan recalled. “Who will look after his family from now onward?”



Meanwhile, transport entrepreneurs and workers have called an indefinite strike in eastern Nepal from Friday to protest the brutal killing. Agitated transport workers forced a shutdown of main markets in Jhapa.



They also brought vehicular movement to a standstill.



Different organizations of transport entrepreneurs and workers have joined hands to press for a seven-point demand, including compensation to Magar´s family.

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