10-year-old boy crushed by truck on DME
Body Lies On Road For 30mins Before A Car Driver Stops To Check; Crash Leads To Pileup
Lucknow: A 10-year-old boy jaywalking on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway was crushed to death by a truck near Sikroda in Ghaziabad on Friday morning. His body lay on the speedway for nearly 30 minutes and was spotted after four cars collided with each other as one of the drivers slowed down, seeing a person lying dead on the road.
While none of the occupants was injured, the cars were damaged, and the pile-up led to a traffic jam on the expressway that was eased after the cars were towed away an hour later.
Additional DCP (traffic) Ramanand Kushwaha said the boy, Samad, a resident of Sikroda, was accompanied by three minor friends. He had crossed the NH9 divider with one of them to reach the DME.
The two boys were playing along the speedway when a truck knocked him down around 9am. While the truck driver drove away, the minors accompanying Samad also fled the spot, the police officer said.
“The body was lying by the side of DME for nearly 30 minutes. A car driver spotted a person lying on the road and slowed down to check on him when a second car, just behind it, rammed into it. Two more cars collided with each other one by one. A police team deputed on the expressway, rushed to the spot and found the body,” Kushwaha said, adding that the body was sent for autopsy and the report is awaited.
Samad’s father Aarif said he had asked his son to skip school on the day. “My niece is getting married on December 3, and I was planning to take him shopping today to buy new clothes and a pair of shoes,” he said.
Masuri SHO Naresh Singh, the police station under which the accident took place, said the boy’s family was yet to submit a complaint. “We are trying to identify the vehicle number and the driver from the CCTV footage,” he said.
From January 1 to November 31, a total of 63 accidents took place on DME and EPE, in which 51 people were killed and 45 injured. A total of 132 accidents took place during the same period last year in which 81 people were killed and 87 others injured.
On Wednesday night, two youths were killed while another was severely injured after their bike collided with a truck on the DME near the Hawa Hawai restaurant. Police said the rider got distracted on seeing the aeroplane installation and crashed into the truck ahead of it.