‘Gold medallist, daring cop, but this is how we take her home’

Neha Chauhan (left) was in the front passenger seat of the car that crashed on the Samruddhi Mahamarg on Saturday

Neha Chauhan, the inspector from Haryana police who was killed in a road accident on Samruddhi Mahamarg on Saturday morning, was an acclaimed international hockey player who bagged the gold medal for India Under-18 in 2001 in Hong Kong. A series of other achievements in sports paved her way to get a sub-inspector job in the police force in 2008, said a colleague requesting anonymity.

Chauhan was the frontrunner in the Haryana Police to arrest Priyanka Taneja alias Honey Preet Kaur, a close confidante and alleged adopted daughter of controversial religious guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim in 2017, according to her colleagues and relatives.

Her husband, relatives and colleagues arrived in Wardha from Haryana to collect her mortal remains and return by road. They were upset with the Haryana government and the police department for not opting to airlift her body to her hometown. They also questioned why the police team, led by Chauhan, was sent by road to Parbhani from Panchkula in Haryana.

The mangled remains of the car Chauhan was travelling in

Nishi Singh - her co-player-turned-sister-in-law - told mid-day, "Parbhani district is around 1,700 km from Panchkula. Why did the senior police officers send the team by road? Had they been sent by air she would have been alive."

Singh also expressed anger over the Haryana Police's decision to move her mortal remains to Panchkula by road. "If not by plane, they could have used a helicopter. Her body was dispatched at 1.40 pm on Sunday and is expected to reach Mohali by Monday evening. We will have very little time to complete the rituals," she said.

Also read: Maharashtra: Taking the Samruddhi highway? Be careful, warn motorists

"She was an acclaimed hockey player who represented India in 2001 and won a Gold Medal for the country. She has also done a lot for the Haryana Police," she said, adding that every time there was a mission outside Haryana, she was made to travel via road.

Chauhan, who was a native of Haryana's Kurukshetra district, was deployed as Station House Officer (SHO) of the women police station in Panchkula. She lived with her husband and three children in police quarters there. Her colleagues remembered her as a jovial Good Samaritan. "She would always help the needy. During the lockdown, we would cook food for nearly 400 people and distribute it among them," her colleague said, adding that Chauhan also distributed masks and hand sanitisers.

Neha Chauhan

According to her colleagues, Chauhan and three police personnel left Panchkula at 9 am on April 27 in an official vehicle. They reached Parbhani the next day and arrested Baijnath Shinde around 3.30 pm. After completing formalities, they left Parbhani at 11 pm but met with an accident around 6.50 am in Wardha while driving back.

Chauhan was in the front passenger seat while her two colleagues and Shinde were in the back. The driver said he was in the second lane when the truck carrying onions suddenly swerved in from the third lane, causing the police vehicle to ram into the truck's rear.

According to Singh, Chauhan was asleep when the mishap took place along a stretch where the minimum speed for vehicles is 120 kmph. "It took several hours for rescuers to remove her body from the mangled vehicle. She died on the spot," she said.

The 520-km-long, six-lane Nagpur-Shirdi stretch of the expressway still lacks basic facilities for the drivers, such as eateries and toilets, which according to some, is one of the reasons behind 140 accidents in just three months of its opening. In mid-March, six people travelling in an overloaded car that was speeding died in a crash on the expressway.

120 kmph
Minimum speed along stretch