A 55-year-old woman was killed in Baghamundi village of Jharkhand’s Chatra district on Saturday after a concrete mixer being transported on a pickup van broke loose and struck her by the roadside, police said. The death triggered a road blockade by villagers seeking compensation, safety measures and action against those responsible.
The victim was identified as Sudama Devi, wife of Radhika Saw. According to Itkhori police, the concrete mixer was being taken from Hazaribag to Itkhori for roof-casting work when the rope securing the machine to the pickup van snapped.
The machine reportedly swerved off the road after coming loose and hit Devi, who was standing beside the road in Baghamundi village. She died at the spot, police said.
The incident brought attention to safety risks involving the movement of construction equipment on local roads. The concrete mixer was being carried behind a pickup van, and the police said the securing rope failed during transit. The supplied report does not specify the condition of the vehicle, the speed at which it was travelling or whether the equipment had been transported in compliance with applicable safety requirements.
After the accident, villagers placed the woman’s body on the road and blocked traffic. They demanded compensation for her family, the construction of speed breakers and action against those responsible for the death.
Residents told the newspaper that the stretch between Baghamundi school and the Shiv temple had become accident-prone. They also said several fatal crashes had been reported in the area, although the report did not provide details of those earlier incidents or official figures for the number of deaths.
The blockade was lifted after police assured the villagers that their demands would be looked into, Itkhori police station officer-in-charge Abhishek Kumar Singh said. The body was subsequently sent to Chatra Sadar Hospital for post-mortem examination.
Singh said further investigation was under way. The police investigation is expected to establish how the machine became detached, whether any transport or safety violations occurred and who may be responsible for the incident. The report does not state whether an arrest or formal case had been registered at the time of publication.
