Drunk man rams speeding Thar into two-wheeler at Rajendra Nagar, kills rider

The accused was arrested from the spot, police said, adding that a third vehicle, an Etios car, was also damaged in the incident

NEW DELHI

The Thar involved in the collision. (HT)

A speeding Thar, driven by a drunk man in Rajendra Nagar, hit a two-wheeler and mowed down its 45-year-old rider on Sunday morning, police said on Thursday. The accused was arrested from the spot, police said, adding that a third vehicle, an Etios car, was also damaged in the incident.

Police identified the victim as Gunjan Luthra, a resident of west Patel Nagar, who ran a car dealership in Karol Bagh, and the accused as Tushar Sahni, a Karol Bagh resident, who runs a salon in the locality.

A senior police officer said that their control room was informed about the collision on Shankar Road around 9am on Sunday. Upon reaching the spot, they found the Thar, Etios and a two-wheeler intermingled due to the collision and Luthra lying in a pool of blood. The accused, who was inebriated, was also at the spot, the officer said.

After Luthra was declared dead on arrival at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, the police registered a case under sections 281 (rash driving) and 106 (1) (causing death by negligence) of the BNS at the Rajendra Nagar police station. After Sahni’s medical examination revealed a blood alcohol level of 124mg/100ml—much higher than the permissible limit of 30mg/100ml—police replaced Section 106 with 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder).

Police said the complaint was lodged on a complaint from the Etios’s driver, Ashutosh Kumar, 36. In his statement to the police, he said he works as a taxi driver and stopped to have tea at a roadside vend on Shankar Road, when the Thar rammed his vehicle. Kumar said that he had parked his car to a side, behind which the victim had just stopped, when he was hit by the speeding vehicle from behind.

“The man sitting on the scooter fell on the road and started bleeding from his head. A passerby immediately took him to the hospital,” Kumar said.

Speaking to HT, Kumar said that the Thar driver was “heavily drunk”. “The impact of the hit was such that his Thar turned and rammed into my car. The rear mirror and bumper got completely smashed. The driver was so drunk that he couldn’t even come out of the car by himself. People who had gathered got him out of the car,” Kumar said.

Calls to Luthra’s family went unanswered.

On August 16, a 40-year-old man was killed when a Mahindra Thar rammed into his bike around 1am in Moti Nagar, west Delhi. He was later arrested.

On August 10, a 26-year-old man was arrested on August 10 after his Mahindra Thar crashed near Gate No. 3 of Talkatora Stadium in central Delhi, killing two men sleeping on the pavement. He was found in possession of a bag containing a bag of narcotics.