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19-year-old DU student dies on his way back from birthday celebrations
Five people, all 18 to 19-year-old students of DU, were travelling in the car, police said, adding that the incident took place when the driver tried to change a song on his mobile phone
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Five teenage Delhi University (DU) students out on a late-night drunken ride to celebrate a birthday crashed their speeding car into a railing on the Geeta Colony flyover around 6am on Thursday, causing the open railing to pierce through the windshield and exit from the car’s rear, police said.
The birthday boy, 19-year-old Aishwarya Pandey who was sitting behind the driver, was killed in the crash, police said, adding that the driver of the car was left critically wounded. Medico-legal tests of the three who escaped with minor injuries confirmed they were drunk, investigators said.
“Medical examination of three injured men was conducted and it was found that they were under the influence of alcohol. The amount of consumption is yet to be ascertained,” an investigator, requesting anonymity, said.
The accident took place when the driver was distracted while change a song on his mobile phone, police said. The critically injured person was identified as Aishwarya Mishra, 19, who was behind the wheel. All five passengers in the Hyundai Venue were 18- to 19-year-old DU students, police said.
Deputy commissioner of police (north) Manoj Kumar Meena said the five friends — Keshav Kumar, 19, Krishna Verma, 18, and Ujjwal Tomar, 19, are the others — borrowed a car and travelled to Sector 29 in Gurugram, where they “partied” all night.
According to a friend of two of the injured students, Mishra was driving the vehicle, Kumar was seated in the front, Pandey was sitting behind Mishra, and Tomar was sitting behind Kumar. Verma was sitting in the middle of the back seat. “Those sitting on the back seat were sleeping,” he said, requesting anonymity.
Police said Pandey, Mishra, and Kumar, all from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh, stayed at a rented accommodation in Laxmi Nagar; Verma stayed in Saket and Tomar in Chattarpur. Kumar, Mishra, and Tomar studied at Dyal Singh College, Verma studied at Motilal Nehru College and Pandey studied at Deshbandhu College.
On Wednesday evening, Pandey borrowed a car from an acquaintance to go to a pub in Gurugram with his friends, the investigator said.
When they were on their way back to Laxmi Nagar and reached Geeta Colony flyover, at 5.52am, Mishra attempted to change a song on his mobile phone. “In doing so, he lost control of the vehicle. The car collided with the side railings,” DCP Meena said.
The DCP said the railing entered the car from the centre-left side, wounded the driver and the man sitting behind him, and exited from the rear, leaving the rest of them with minor injuries.
Tomar and Kumar stopped an autorickshaw driver passing by the site and took the injured to Lok Nayak Hospital, where Pandey succumbed to his injuries during treatment. Mishra was taken to a private hospital by his family, police said.
Amarnath Mishra, father of Aishwarya Mishra, said that he was clueless about the incident. “I received a call in the morning from his friends and police. I reached here and got to know about what happened. He has sustained injuries to his face and head. I hope he gets better,” the father said.
Pandey’s uncle Pardeep Awasthi, 48, said that the boy’s parents died a few years ago and he was in the care of his maternal uncle in Etawah. “His mother passed away three years ago in an accident. She was a teacher. He lost his father before that. He was staying with his maternal uncle before he came to Delhi for studies. It’s unfortunate he died after his birthday celebration,” Awasthi said.
