Three-year-old dies as drunk driver crashes into car

When they were waiting at the NABARD Junction signal at around 5 pm, a speeding car came from the opposite side of the traffic flow and crashed into their vehicle. Swati was pushed towards the windshield of the car and sustained fatal injuries. The accused was identified as Vishwas Attawar (54), a resident of Bandra.

Mumbai: A three-year-old girl died on Tuesday evening after a drunk driver crashed his vehicle into the car, she was traveling in at Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). The accused, according to witnesses, crashed into multiple vehicles, including auto rickshaws and injured several people.

Three-year-old dies as drunk driver crashes into car

As per the details shared by the police, the deceased Swati Chaudhary was with her uncle Om Chaudhary and his friend Vinod Yadav. They were going towards Kherwadi.

The car that was smashed was a part of the fleet used by the Government of India undertaking Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) to ferry its employees around. Both Yadav and Om work for the company that hires the drivers for these cars.

When they were waiting at the NABARD Junction signal at around 5 pm, a speeding car came from the opposite side of the traffic flow and crashed into their vehicle. Swati was pushed towards the windshield of the car and sustained fatal injuries. The accused was identified as Vishwas Attawar (54), a resident of Bandra.

A relative of the Chaudhary family said that the people who brought Swati to the hospital told them that soon after the crash, they forced Attawar out of the car. “They said he reeked of alcohol, spoke with a slur and couldn’t even stand up straight,” he said.

Yadav recalled that the child was hurled towards the dashboard due to the impact of the crash and she had started bleeding. Passers-by rushed Swati to the nearby Asian Heart Hospital, but she could not be saved.

Yadav was pushed into the steering wheel and Chaudhary suffered head injuries as he was also flung towards the dashboard. The two, along with some other injured, were taken to a private hospital in Kalina.

“Ours was not the first or the only car that the red car crashed into. Before hitting our vehicle, he first hit a couple of autorickshaws and a tempo. Some of the pedestrians around us were also injured,” Yadav said in his statement to the police. He added that one pedestrian had suffered serious injury to his hands.

An official from BKC police said that Attawar had been detained and booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, rash and negligent driving and driving under the influence of alcohol.

DCP zone 9 Dikshit Gedam said that the accused was found under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident and accordingly the offence was registered. He also confirmed that Attawar had been granted bail by Wednesday evening and was no longer in police custody. Further investigation in the case is still underway, he added.

Hit-and-run

Another fatal accident took place early on Tuesday near Vakola bridge, killing a man. The victim, Maruti Gokule (40), was driving a two-wheeler from Dadar to Andheri, when his vehicle was allegedly hit from behind by another vehicle.

In his complaint to the police, the uncle of the deceased, Vilas Gokule (57), said that he was informed about his nephew being taken to a hospital by a passing rickshaw driver, who saw him lying injured by the roadside. The doctors at the hospital told him that Maruti had sustained several fractures.

“I was also told they did not have the means to treat him. We, therefore, took him to Cooper Hospital in Juhu. He was talking to me while on the way there but breathed his last on the way to the hospital. The doctors declared dead on arrival,” the complainant added.

Vakola police have registered a case against the accused for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.