Last effort by fellow walkers  Veterans put victim in van, rush to hospital

ABHIJEET CHATTERJEE

Asansol, June 9: Three men, all over 60, today took CPM leader Dilip Sarkar to hospital, pushing a cycle van which was the only vehicle they could find at 5.30am on a deserted Burnpur road. Sarkar, their morning-walk mate, had been shot by two assailants, one of them a woman, according to witnesses. The effort of the trio went in vain. Sarkar was declared brought dead at IISCO Hospital, 500m from the crime spot. As most morning walkers scattered and fled the scene of crime, the three started looking for a vehicle. In an unfortunate resemblance to Amitabh Bachchan's Agneepath, the three Burnpur residents, aided by others who came later, dragged the cycle van from the corner of the road where it was parked. They somehow put Sarkar on it and rushed to the hospital. "Two pushed from behind, another pulled at the handle," said an IISCO employee who was "too scared" to come out from behind a tree. In Agneepath, a child Vijay (who grows up to become the character played by Amitabh) carries the body of his father (Aloke Nath) in a cart after villagers leave him dead on a road. Seeing the trio making every possible attempt to take Sarkar to the hospital, several residents joined them in the effort. That Sarkar was a known face also helped. "Several curious people who saw us pushing the cycle van with all our force joined us. They had too many questions, which I said I would answer later," said Saumitra Chakraborty, a DYFI worker who used to accompany Sarkar on his walks. The combined effort managed to cut down to half the 20-minute journey from the Upper Burnpur Road, where Sarkar was shot, to the IISCO Hospital. Sarkar was declared brought dead around 6am. Asked later in the evening to recount, DYFI leader Chakraborty, who stays in the same locality as Sarkar's, said he was sitting in a tea stall along the road where the CPM leader usually came for a sip after his walk. "We were at the tea stall near Dhobi Ghat. Sarkar was walking alone briskly. I saw a scooter honking behind him. A woman with her face covered pulled out a pistol and fired at Sarkar twice. She was riding pillion. Sarkar fell to the ground, but sat up again and tried to call somebody on his cellphone," Chakraborty said. "Then, the man riding the scooter halted the vehicle, walked up to the bleeding Sarkar and pumped two bullets into his chest and abdomen. He slumped and the cellphone fell from his hand. Those three minutes were horrible," he added. A retired Burn Standard employee, who had joined Sarkar in his morning walks almost every day for the past two years and took the CPM leader to the hospital today, said: "We put Sarkar on the cycle van. He was bleeding profusely and gasping for breath. We started pushing the van with all our might, if you say, like the scene in Agneepath where little Vijay takes his father's body to the burning ghat on a cart. We had no alternative as there was hardly any vehicle on the road so early in the morning. The streets were almost deserted," he said. The 62-year-old, who did not wish to be identified. said Sarkar always took the Upper Burnpur Road during the walk. The CPM's leader home is 300m from where he was murdered. The third person who took Sarkar to the hospital refused to speak about the murder.