Auto driver who left 75-year-old injured woman to die on road arrested

Autorickshaw driver arrested for abandoning injured woman on the road in Mumbai. Driver confessed out of fear and panic. Charged under various sections.

MUMBAI: The MHB Colony police on Wednesday arrested the autorickshaw driver who abandoned a 75-year-old injured woman on the side of the road in Bhayandar on June 5.

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The police said they scanned the CCTV footage across the stretch of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Highway and identified the accused as Rahul Kumar Sahu, 30.

Sahu was arrested from his residence in Kandivali. He confessed that he got scared assuming that he would be grilled by the hospital about the woman and panicked. When he did not understand what to do, he left the woman on the side of the road.

Sahu said that he was travelling from Kandivali to Dahisar when he was flagged by a crowd gathered at an accident spot on the Dahisar bridge. “The crowd asked him to stop and put the unconscious woman in his auto without asking him and asked him to drive to a hospital,” said a police officer.

“We have arrested Sahu under sections 201 (destruction of evidence), 279 (rash driving), 304A (causing death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the Motor Vehicles Act and will produce him before the court on Thursday,” said the police officer.

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.

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.

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.