Woman misleads cops to save sister in Dwarka accident case

On Sunday around 6.30pm, the elderly couple Shanti Swaroop Arora and his wife Anjula Arora were out on a stroll when a grey Baleno car hit them from the front and ran over them on the Masjid Wali Road. The accident was captured by a CCTV camera installed at a mosque across the road.

Four days after a 79-year-old doctor and his 62-year-old wife were killed after being run over by a car in Sector 11, Dwarka, in south-west Delhi, the police on Thursday said the errant driver was not the woman they had arrested earlier but her sister, a 28-year-old probationary officer of Canara Bank.

The colour of the clothes worn by the errant driver and her physique was captured by a CCTV camera at the mosque. (Screengrab)

Both sisters have now been arrested – bank employee Nupur Choudhary on charges of rash and negligent driving that resulted in the death of the elderly couple, and 30-year-old Deepakshi Choudhary on charges of misleading the police and getting herself arrested to save her sister’s job, said deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka) Santosh Kumar Meena.

“We have arrested Nupur for rash and negligent driving causing death, while appropriate charges are being added in the case against Deepakshi, who misled us and our probe. Deepakshi and her family members said she owned up to the offence in an attempt to save Nupur’s job. We are investigating the case further to ascertain if there are any other reasons behind the subterfuge,” said DCP Meena, adding that the car is registered in the name of Deepakshi, who has obtained bail in the accident case.

On Sunday around 6.30pm, the elderly couple Shanti Swaroop Arora and his wife Anjula Arora were out on a stroll when a grey Baleno car hit them from the front and ran over them on the Masjid Wali Road. The accident was captured by a CCTV camera installed at a mosque across the road.

In the six-minute-long video clip recorded by the CCTV camera, the couple is seen walking on the left side of the road; when suddenly, a grey car moving at a slow speed in the middle of the road starts moving towards them and hits them. The man and his wife fall on the road, and the car is seen running them over.

The footage also shows a woman driver stopping, taking out her cellphone from the car, and calling someone frantically. Some passersby rescued the elderly couple and rushed them to a nearby hospital, where they died.

DCP Meena said that when the police reached the hospital and enquired about the errant driver, a man told them that the accident was caused by his elder daughter. A woman came forward, identified herself as the car’s owner Deepakshi Choudhary and confessed to hitting the couple while driving. She told the police that she was distracted while driving, leading to her losing control of the vehicle.

The fresh developments in the case emerged only after family members of the dead couple raised doubts about the arrest and said the woman arrested by the police was not the one driving the car at the time of the accident. The family members told the police that the car was driven by the arrested woman’s sister, the Delhi Police had said in a statement on Wednesday night.

HT tried to contact the couple’s family for comment, but the cellphone number available for them was switched off.

The police are now probing if the actual driver had a valid driving licence and, if not, whether that was the reason why the sisters had chose to mislead the police. The DCP did not comment on the driving licence angle when asked about it.

The colour of the clothes worn by the errant driver and her physique was captured by a CCTV camera at the mosque. The police said the sisters had not exchanged their clothes, but the investigating team had not matched the colour of the sisters’ clothes with the video footage at the time of Deepakshi’s arrest. The DCP insisted that were no lapses on part of the investigation team.

“We arrested the woman based on her confession and her father’s statement. But when the dead couple’s family members raised doubts, we verified their allegations that the car was being driven by Deepakshi’s sister and found it true. Accordingly, both the sisters have been arrested,” the DCP said.