For months after her 18-year-old son was mowed down by a truck in Dehradun on February 16, 2024, Lalita Chaudhary kept revisiting the accident spot. By then, the police had all but given up their search for the culprit, but a tireless Lalita returned every day, hoping for some clue – a stray eyewitness, missed CCTV footage – that could lead to her son’s killer.
Then one day, she hit paydirt. “I saw that a godown in the area also had a camera with a view of the road. I connected with the owner, who initially dismissed my pleas. I tried again and told him how I had been rendered helpless. He said he was in Delhi, but that same night, he came all the way back to Dehradun and handed me the clips,” Lalita said.
Last week, the Dehradun Police ordered a reinvestigation of Kshitij’s death. For Lalita, a door-to-door beautician and a single parent who became an unlikely fighter, it was the outcome of one-and-a-half years of relentless pursuit of the truth, from getting the footage to tracking down details of the truck from the Regional Transport Office. The decision comes as considerable relief, especially since the police had already filed a closure report.
“After his death, I stopped going to work. I missed work for four months, and my parents pitched in to help my daughter with her studies at Doon University and with rent at our home in Dehradun,” she said.
Kshitij was run over by a dumper truck at 2.45 am, when he and his friend Jeet Nayak were walking in Prem Nagar towards Dehradun city. Nayak alerted emergency services, following which Kshitij was brought to Doon Hospital by ambulance and later referred to AIIMS Hospital, Rishikesh. He died during treatment on February 17 at 5 pm.
Lalita’s search for the truth began soon after Kshitij’s last rites. On February 19, she went to the police station to lodge a complaint.
“I visited the police station multiple times that week to get an update on the investigation, but the police maintained that they were probing. On February 26, I visited again, and this time, they appeared to have had no direction on where the investigation was heading,” she said.
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After an impatient wait, Lalita took matters into her own hands. On the 13th day after her son’s death, she left for the accident spot. “I concluded all the prayers; I wanted him to rest in peace, but I wanted to secure justice for him. I saw his blood smeared on the road and was devastated, but I kept looking for some clue to turn up. I spotted cameras on the streetlights, but the police said they were not working. I went to nearby shops to get CCTV footage, but it was not available. I was completely drained,” the 43-year-old said.
Soon, work and daily routine disrupted her hunt for the truth, but she did not give up.
“I would go to the spot every night at 11 pm and stay a few feet away to map the movement of vehicles. Initially, I thought I would spot the truck, but it never came by. I would stay there till early morning,” Lalita said.
Still, she continued to go there every night, often stopping passersby in the hope of piecing together the events of that day. One such chance meeting led her to a food delivery executive through whose phone she had been alerted to the accident.
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“He had seen my son on the road and stopped to help Jeet take him to the hospital. It was a serendipitous meeting, and he told me what unfolded,” she said. “He shared videos and pictures with me from that night.”
But this wasn’t enough. One day, she spotted something she had not noticed in her earlier visits: the warehouse, with a camera facing the road. Later in 2024 – three months after securing this footage – Lalita said she tried to track down the truck on her own. By then, she had tried to send the clips to the police, but there was little movement.
She then went to the Regional Transport Office for more details, hoping to give the investigation some momentum. But even this proved futile. “After getting these details from the RTO, I went to the police again,” she said.
For months, nothing moved. Then, in October last year, she was informed that a final closure report had been filed after the IO said he could not trace the truck driver. “I tried everything. I contacted media people whom I had heard of through Facebook, but no one could amplify my voice,” she said.
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But Lalita refused to fold. On April 4 this year, she met Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait at a condolence meeting organised for Divyanshu Jatrana, a student from Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar who was allegedly killed by his fellow students in Dehradun.
That meeting helped give her case a push. “He helped me meet the SSP. After the officer listened to my story, he ordered a probe into the incident and directed that I submit the complaint at the Prem Nagar police station,” she said.
When contacted, Prem Nagar station house officer Naresh Rathore confirmed the direction, saying that since a closure report had already been filed, they have informed the local court of the need to reopen the case. “Once we get the approval, we will begin the probe,” he said.
Asked why they didn’t pursue Lalita’s leads, the officer declined to comment, saying he had just joined and that the IO in the case “had been transferred to another police station”.
