Auto driver dumps body of 75-year-old accident victim in Bhayandar

The incident occurred on May 30, when two people on a motorcycle hit a senior citizen on a bridge in Dahisar East. The passersby then stopped an autorickshaw and asked him to take the woman to the hospital. The accused, however, did not inform the police and dumped the injured woman near Naigaon

MUMBAI: The MHB Colony police have booked a rickshaw driver and a motorcycle rider for allegedly hitting a 74-year-old woman near Dahisar and then dumping her body at a roadside in Naigaon, Bhayandar after assuring the locals that they are taking her to the hospital.

Lakshmi Kamla Sayani, 75. (HT Photo)

For three days, the woman’s relatives searched for her. The Naigaon police later informed them that they had found a body matching her description.

The incident occurred on May 30, when two people on a motorcycle hit a senior citizen on a bridge in Dahisar East. The passersby then stopped an autorickshaw and asked him to take the woman to the hospital. The accused, however, did not inform the police and dumped the injured woman near Naigaon.

Ganesh Jambde, 25, a driver by profession, told the police that his grandmother, Lakshmi Kamla Sayani, 75, stays with his family or his uncle’s family. She used to go outside for alms (charity) sometimes, and leave her house in the morning and return in the evening.

On May 30, Sayani left her Shimpoli house in Borivali West. When she did not return till late at night, Jambde went out to look for her. When he failed to find his grandmother, Jambde approached the MHB Colony police and registered a missing persons case.

While looking for her grandmother all night, Jambde reached the overbridge, where locals told him that a day before, a senior citizen was injured in an accident. The locals also told Jambde that an autorickshaw driver took her to a hospital or medical centre.

“We looked for my grandmother at all the clinics and hospitals from Malad to Dahisar but did not find her admitted anywhere. We did not even know whether she was dead or alive,” said Jambde.

On Monday, Jambde received a call from the Naigaon police station informing him that they had found the body of a woman matching the description of his grandmother near the Bhiwandi highway, around Shilottar village on June 2. The body was sent to Nalasopara Hospital for a postmortem. Jambde said that they reached Naigaon and identified the deceased to be his grandmother.

Based on Jambde’s statement, the MHB police have registered a case against the unidentified rickshaw driver and motorcycle rider under sections 201 (destruction of evidence), 279 (rash driving), 304A (causing death due to negligence), 337 (causing hurt to any person by doing any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life or the personal safety of others) 338 (causing grievous hurt to any person by doing any act so rashly or negligently as to endanger human life, or the personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.