Saroj Pawar recounts the horror of losing her spouse and being left alone to bring the body back, as other crew members went ahead with their Goa trip and would not even provide details to the cops
It was the wee hours of Thursday, 2017-02-16, when 43-year-old Anand Pawar started for Goa, along with eight other Harley-Davidson riders, to participate in the fifth edition of the Harley Owners Group (HOG) rally.
His wife, Saroj, was following the group in a four-wheeler. To her horror, as she reached Amboli Ghat, she found her husband lying in a pool of blood.
According to Saroj, not only was there no clarity on what had happened, but once he was declared dead in the hospital, the rest of the group promptly left her to fend for herself. She claimed that the rest of the crew told her they would head back to Pune, but instead continued with their ride to Goa, where a three-day national event was to begin that evening.
“There was absolutely no medical assistance for the bikers during the rally.
And, when my husband was taken to hospital, the rest of the bikers left for Goa, leaving me alone to make the arrangements for his final journey back to Pune,” Saroj told Pune Mirror.
Anand, a businessman dealing in surgical equipment, had participated in various HOG expeditions over the last five years. This year was the first time that Saroj was able to join him, making it an extra special occasion.
“We started at 5.30 am on Thursday and I reached Amboli Ghat around 1.30 pm. There, I found my husband was lying in a pool of blood with a serious head injury. The other bikers were with him but nobody could tell me what had happened. Despite it being such a prestigious event, none of the bikers were carrying medical kits. Nor was there an ambulance accompanying them,” Saroj said.
According to Saroj, Anand was taken to a nearby primary healthcare centre. But, with his condition deemed critical, he had to be shifted to the government hospital at Sawantwadi - a difficult move.
“By the time the ambulance reached the spot, we had already wasted a lot of precious time. As we were taking Anand to Sawantwadi, I was alone in the ambulance, holding the oxygen mask - none of the others in his group were of any help,” Saroj added.
In the government hospital, Anand succumbed to his injuries. It was then that the legendary brotherhood of bikers unravelled before Saroj’s eyes.
As soon as it was confirmed that Anand was no more, the other bikers left her alone in the hospital and headed out for Goa. “After the doctor declared him dead, police visited the hospital. When they asked the other bikers about the accident, none of them came forward with details - instead, they claimed to not have seen the accident at all,” Saroj claimed.
She added, “After the news of my husband’s death reached Pune, some of my relatives immediately sent a local person from Sawantwadi to the hospital. The other bikers told me that they were going back to Pune, leaving me alone in the hospital.” Much later, she realised that they had continued with their plan of riding to Goa.
It was only after a group of Anand’s friends and relatives reached Sawantwadi that Saroj got assistance and her husband’s body could be brought back to Pune. Sagar Zende, a family friend who was at Sawantwadi, told Mirror, “When I reached the hospital, I saw Saroj alone. We started the process of bringing Anand’s body back only after all of us arrived.”
“Harley Davidson is such a big name in the biking world. I was shocked to see that there were absolutely no arrangements for medical assistance for the bikers during such a major event. It has been two days since the incident occurred, but not a single member of the group has contacted me,” Saroj said.
When Mirror contacted Soumen Choudhury, who oversees the Pune chapter of HOG, he merely said that he was not part of the group with whom Pawar was riding.
“I heard about the incident but do not know the exact details,” he said.
On being asked if incidents of riders being abandoned after an accident are common among the group, he said, “The group has been around for five years and they are an extremely cohesive bunch. In the past, fellow riders have gone out of their way to help a member in distress. In this case, I am unaware as to what happened and hence cannot say much.”
(Copied verbatim from Pune Mirror dated 2017-02-19)
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* Mishap And Calamity
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