Speeding Thar runs over man in Gurugram; kills him, leaves motorist injured

Eyewitnesses said the driver appeared to be inebriated during the incident, but police could not confirm the same

A 44-year-old pedestrian died and a motorist on a scooter was severely injured upon being hit by a speeding Thar, which trapped them against the staircase of a building—severing the leg of the pedestrian—located at a three-way intersection in the internal roads of Chakarpur in Sector 28, police said on Saturday.

The spot of the incident. (Parveen Kumar/HT Photo)

The incident took place around 11.15pm on Wednesday, and an FIR was lodged on Thursday. Eyewitnesses said the driver appeared to be inebriated during the incident, but police could not confirm the same.

The deceased was identified as Ravi Thapa, who came from Darjeeling in West Bengal and was searching for a job as a cook. The details of the injured person were not available, but the accused driver was identified as 29-year-old Prashant Yadav, who runs franchises of multinational fast-food restaurants in Gurugram.

“He (Yadav) fled from his Chakarpur house after the accident; he was traced and arrested from another location in the city. His damaged Thar was also impounded. It has yet not surfaced whether he was drunk at the time of the accident. However, he was speeding in the narrow by-lane,” said police inspector Ravi Kumar, station house officer of DLF police station in Sector 29.

Police said the incident took place at the Jena Market Chowk, on a 15-foot-wide road, at 11.13pm on Wednesday and that Thapa’s right leg was caught between the vehicle and the staircase, causing severe blood loss. Thapa and the injured motorist were taken to the Civil Hospital in Sector 10, but doctors referred Thapa to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi.

They said his leg was operated upon at the Delhi facility, but he died of haemorrhagic shock due to extreme blood loss on Thursday. Relatives of the injured person took him to another hospital and police are trying to contact him.

Eyewitnesses told HT that the Thar driver, immediately after crushing the two victims, reversed haphazardly and rammed into a roadside stall. He then turned right and fled towards the road leading to Galleria Market.

“It seems the driver was drunk. I escaped from getting crushed hardly by a foot. I had just closed my shop and was crossing the road when I heard the engine roar of the oncoming Thar and jumped over a roadside pushcart to save myself,” an eyewitness, not wanting to be named, said.

“Thapa was talking to someone on the phone and was crossing the tri-junction along with the person on the scooter when the Thar rammed them,” the eyewitness said.

Vishal Kumar, another eyewitness, said both the men were thrown several feet inside the corridor of the building due to the impact.

SHO Kumar said that during questioning, Yadav alleged that he tried to apply the brakes when the scooter suddenly cropped up in front of him and he ended up flooring the accelerator in panic, resulting in the accident.

As the accused was yet to be arrested, Thapa’s friends and relatives held a candlelight protest in front of the Chakarpur police post from 8pm to 11pm on Friday.

Sanjay Tamang, Thapa’s brother-in-law, who also lives in Chakarpur, alleged that police delayed taking action against the suspect. However, SHO Kumar denied the allegation and said that as the accused fled the scene, they were tracking him and arrested him on Friday night.

On Tamang’s complaint, police registered an FIR against Yadav under sections 125(b) (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 281 (rash driving or riding on public way) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at the DLF police station on Thursday. After Thapa’s death, Section 106 (causing death by negligence) of the BNS was added to the FIR.

Thapa’s body was handed over to the family after an autopsy on Friday.