Police seek more time from court to probe BMW crash

The court will again hear the matter on Wednesday after the police have completed its preliminary probe.

The Delhi Police on Saturday sought more time from a city court to investigate the BMW crash that killed a finance ministry official Navjot Singh on Ring Road last week.

Gaganpreet Makkad in police custody. (PTI)

The submission was made by public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava, appearing for Delhi Police before judicial magistrate first class Ankit Garg of Patiala House Court, as the accused Gaganpreet Makkad’s bail application was being heard.

“Three aspects of the case need to be investigated. Firstly, the footage of the crash needs to be shown to the deceased’s wife Sandeep Kaur, who is currently admitted at a hospital and will be able to give her statement in two days…the accused’s mobile phone also needs to be seized and her driving license is also yet to be obtained,” Shrivastava told the court.

The prosecutor also sought an adjournment of the bail plea. The court will again hear the matter on Wednesday after the police have completed its preliminary probe.

Meanwhile, senior advocate Pradeep Rana, on behalf of Makkad, moved an application seeking preservation of the call detail record of Makkad and Sandeep’s phone. “Both the phones will have history of calls and internet browsing history wherein Makkad searched for hospitals immediately after the incident and also made frantic calls to her relatives, seeking their opinion on hospitals,” Rana told the court. The court has issued a notice to police on the plea.

The development comes after the court directed that CCTV footage from metro pillar number 65 to 67 be preserved along with other relevant video evidence. To be sure, Makkad’s BMW crashed into one of these pillars before overturning and hitting Singh’s bike.

Makkad’s counsel Ramesh Gupta had argued that the sequence of incident and production of the footage before the court will be used as defence in her bail argument. However, the court went on to issue notice to the investigating officer (IO) of the case to appear on Friday with the case diary.

Further, Gupta argued that during the accident, her car first hit the pillar, crashed into Singh’s bike, which collided with a bus. Therefore, the bus should also be seized and the driver be examined.

Delhi Police has opposed the bail plea moved by Makkad, arguing that her release shall risk witness intimidation.

Police’s response to her bail plea, reported by HT, stated that she showed mala fide intentions by not taking Singh and her wife to the nearest hospital and instead taking them to 20km-away Nulife Super Speciality Hospital in GTB Nagar, purportedly having links with her family.

Police claimed that several crucial moments were lost due to her negligence.

Gupta also claimed that police had wrongly invoked a section pertaining to culpable homicide not amounting to murder as even Makkad and her family suffered trauma due to the accident and she tried her best to give them medical assistance.

The accused is currently lodged in judicial custody till September 27.

The crash took place on September 14 around 1.30pm when Singh, a deputy secretary in the Union Finance Ministry, and his wife were riding home on a motorcycle to Hari Nagar. A speeding BMW, driven by Makkad, a Gurugram resident, crashed into a metro pillar near Dhaula Kuan, overturned and rammed into their bike.

Makkad has been booked under charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, obstruction of evidence, rash driving and endangering lives.