A memorial tree, then the gorge: three central media officials die on a Mizoram road

Aizawl, Oct 3 — They had gone to plant a tree in memory of a brother lost to a road accident. On the way back, the road took three more lives. Dr Engam Pame, Additional Director General of the Press Information Bureau and the Central Bureau of Communication's regional office in Imphal; Nampibou Marinmai, Director (News) of Doordarshan Kendra, Aizawl; and H. Lianvela, a multi-tasking staff member of the CBC field office in Aizawl, were killed on the night of October 1 when their vehicle veered off a hill road and plunged into a deep gorge near Sataek village, about 30 km south of Aizawl. The four were returning to Aizawl after visiting Sialsuk — the officials had planted a tree there in memory of Pame's brother, who had himself died in an accident. According to officials, the driver, Gojendro Dey of the CBC's Aizawl office, suddenly experienced severe physical uneasiness: he was unable to move his limbs or open his eyes. The vehicle went off the road and fell into the gorge. Dey survived with severe injuries and was admitted to Zoram Medical College and Hospital at Falkawn, near Aizawl. Rescue teams faced brutal terrain. Personnel from the Sialsuk police station and volunteers of the Young Mizo Association worked through the night to recover the bodies and pull the injured driver from the wreck. The three bodies were brought to ZMCH late Thursday night for postmortem examination, conducted on Friday. The deaths sent shockwaves through the information fraternity of the Northeast. Leaders of the Mizoram Journalists' Association visited ZMCH on Thursday night to pay homage. Chief Minister Lalduhoma, Mizoram Congress president Lal Thanzara, Manipur Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh and Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw were among those who condoled the deaths; the Mizoram Governor and the Ministry of Defence also issued tributes. Marinmai and Pame — both natives of Tamenglong district in Manipur — were to be taken to their hometowns on Friday after the autopsy; Lianvela's body was handed to his family in Mizoram. Pame had been in Mizoram on official work — meetings of the Inter Media Publicity Coordination Committee and recruitment for a translator's post at PIB Aizawl — a reminder that the three men died in the line of duty, on the very roads their departments' publicity vans travel to reach the state's remotest villages. Authorities have not determined the exact cause of the crash. An investigation is underway, and officials said the driver's medical condition at the wheel is central to it. The gorge near Sataek is one of dozens of unbarriered stretches on Mizoram's hill roads — roads that the state's own administrators travel daily, at the mercy of a single moment of lost control.