Van Was Hit By i10 car from behind
Lucknow: A 35-year-old constable on the way to work died after his scooter crashed into a divider on NH-9 on Tuesday afternoon. His was the eighth death on the Ghaziabad section of the speedway in less than a week.
Police said a cycle van fitted with an engine crashed into Sushil Kumar’s scooter from behind, causing him to lose his balance. The van was hit from behind by an i10 car being driven by a woman, who has been booked.
Around 1pm, Kumar left his Modinagar house for Vijay Nagar police station, with which he is attached. “He was travelling on his scooter. Preliminary investigation revealed that an i10 car cruising towards Delhi hit the van (jugaad vehicle), which, in turn, crashed into the cop’s scooter. He suffered grievous injuries,” said Ravi Prakash Singh, ACP (Wave City).
The woman fled, leaving the car behind on the highway.
Passersby informed the police. “Kumar was rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival,” Singh said.
Umesh Chandra Naithani, the SHO of Crossings Republik police station, said the i10 belonged to Aditya Suri, a resident of Dundahera. His sister, Puja (31), was behind the wheel and was headed for Delhi.
“She was moving at high speed and failed to slam the brakes in time. She appeared to have lost focus on the road. We have seized the car,” Naithani said.
An FIR has been registered against Puja under sections 279 (rash driving) and 304A (death due to negligence) of the IPC. “We are trying to arrest the driver. She fled, leaving the car behind,” the SHO said.
The accident once again brought to the fore the lack of enforcement of traffic rules on the highway. Vans or scooters fitted with modified engines are anyway banned. They are not allowed on NH-9 either because of a difference in speed with vehicles that cruise on the speedway at 100kmph. This year, till May 31, 302 such vans have been seized in the district by police.
Since July 11, eight deaths have been reported on the crucial stretch. Six members of a family died and two were injured after a private bus being driven on the wrong side of the adjacent Delhi-Meerut Expressway for almost 8km crashed into their car. CCTV footage circulated on social media showed the bus trying to swerve to the right to avoid a collision, but ending up crashing into the TUV because the car, too, steered to its left.
On Sunday, a third-year BTech student on a scooter was mowed down by a car that was reversing on NH-9.
