8-year-old dies after being dragged under car driven by minor in Bhondsi

Police said the incident took place around 6.30pm on Friday on a 20- to 25-foot-wide internal road in Krishna Kunj when the deceased was accompanying his father to a nearby market.

An eight-year-old boy died after being hit and dragged for at least 20 meters under a speeding car driven by a 15-year-old in a narrow bylane in Bhondsi on Friday evening, police said on Saturday. The victim, Yohan, was declared dead at a private hospital in Sector 51. 

The car involved in the accident. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

Police said the incident took place around 6.30pm on a 20- to 25-foot-wide internal road in Krishna Kunj when Yohan was accompanying his father, Ashwani Kumar, to a nearby market to buy medicines for his ailing wife. The father was standing on the staircase of a pharmacy while the boy waited on the roadside when the car struck him. 

A senior police official said the accused, a resident of Prem Kunj, was driving a silver Maruti Suzuki SX4 bearing a Sultanpur registration number. “Eyewitnesses said that he was speeding on a 20-foot-wide road. He hit the boy standing just near his father, who got struck beneath the car and was dragged. By the time the suspect stopped, the boy was severely injured, resulting in his instant death,” the officer said.  

Locals pulled the child from under the car and rushed him to hospital. They also dragged the teen driver out of the vehicle and assaulted him for several minutes before taking him to the same hospital. Police said he had injuries on his eyes, face and other body parts. 

“However, others rescued him and took him to the same hospital where the child was rushed with the motive that he would inform his father to bear the medical expenses of the treatment. The hospital, meanwhile, alerted the police, looking at the scenario that the injured boy was already dead,” the senior officer said. 

Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said a team reached the hospital to find the accused seated with injuries while an irate crowd of 50 to 60 people surrounded him. “The team took him into their custody immediately and safely escorted him out to rush him to the civil hospital in Sector 10A, where he continues to remain under treatment for injuries sustained from the assault,” Turan said, adding that he will be apprehended only after discharge. 

The child’s body was sent for autopsy and handed over to the family on Saturday. Police said Yohan was a class II student at a private school. Kumar is a construction material trader, and his wife is a teacher. The accused studies in class X, and his father works in a private firm, they added. 

Kumar told HT that his son had been standing barely a foot away from him. “He was engrossed in making purchases when the speeding car hit his son. I ran immediately behind the car. He was unresponsive when I pulled him out from beneath the car.”

An eyewitness told HT that the teenager was speeding in a narrow lane.

On Kumar’s complaint, police registered an FIR against the minor driver under sections 106 (causing death by negligence) and 281 (rash driving) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at Bhondsi police station.

Police said that there was a ‘L’ (i.e. learning) sticker pasted on the rear of the car. Investigators said they are yet to determine whether the car belonged to the accused’s father or had been borrowed. The car, registered in the name of the accused’s uncle, is now 15 years old and was regularly used by the accused’s father, police said. The car also had its registration extended till 2029. Investigators added that if the car is proven to be owned by the minor’s father, he will be made a co-accused. Police added that no counter complaint for assault on the minor was filed by anyone.