Hyderabad: Infant sleeping on pavement run over

Hyderabad: In a tragic incident that took place in the city, a five-month-old homeless toddler while sleeping on the pavement was run over by an unidentified vehicle during the wee hours on Tuesday.

Sankollu Shivamma, 29, mother of the five-month-old boy Nani, was homeless and begged to get by. After spending all day begging in commercial areas, she and Nani would sleep on a pavement near the temple bus stop in the third phase of KPHB Colony while her husband Shivaiah, a daily wage worker, is said to usually spend his nights at whatever construction sites he had been appointed to work at.

As per the routine, Shivamma on Monday night fed dinner to Nani and then climbed the pavement with him to sleep alongside another woman, identified as Devi Kumari, also a beggar.

Around 3 am on Tuesday, however, when Devi Kumari woke up to answer the call of nature, she found blood beside the footpath. When she looked closely, she found that Nani had received an injury to his head and that his ribs had dislocated from his body on to the main road. She then alerted Shivamma and, with some help from passersby, called for an ambulance to shift him to a hospital. Unfortunately, however, he succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital.

KPHB inspector K. Laxmi Narayana said, “Shivamma and Nani slept on the pavement on Monday night. An unidentified vehicle ran over the boy while they were asleep and that is what eventually led to his death. A team has been formed to analyse the available CCTV footage so as to identify and nab the accused.”