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2 killed, 6 hurt after car hits e-rickshaw on wrong lane of Dwarka expressway
Investigators said the accident took place near Dhanwapur Chowk at about 6pm on Monday. They said the Kia Seltos car had five people in it and all of them escaped unhurt
Gurugram: Two people were killed and six more were critically injured when an overloaded e-rickshaw allegedly moving on the wrong side of a service lane below the elevated section of the Dwarka expressway, was hit by a car coming from the opposite direction, police said on Tuesday.
Investigators said the accident took place near Dhanwapur Chowk at about 6pm on Monday. They said the Kia Seltos car had five people in it and all of them escaped unhurt.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the e-rickshaw was on the wrong side but based on the statement of one of those who was injured in the accident, the police booked the car driver for causing death by negligence.
The car was travelling towards Manesar while the e-rickshaw was moving on the service lane in the wrong direction from a link road of a nearby locality, police said.
They said that commuters alerted the police control room after which emergency response vehicles and teams from the Rajendra Park police station reached the spot and took all eight injured people to the Gurugram Civil Hospital in Sector-10A.
Investigators said that Ravi Kumar, 22, was declared ‘brought dead’ by the doctors while another person Pankaj Kumar, 24, succumbed to his injuries late at night. The six injured people are still undergoing treatment.
A senior police official said Ravi, hailing from Jodhpur in Rajasthan, was a daily wage earner who lived in Kheri village. Pankaj, the other deceased, was the e-rickshaw driver and hailed from Bhiwani and lived in Rajendra Park.
“None of those in the car were injured as per preliminary investigation. We have seized the car as well as the e-rickshaw. The e-rickshaw should not have been on the lane where it was at the time of the accident, indicating that the driver tried to take a shortcut to reach a nearby area after coming out from a link road of a locality connecting the service lane,” he said.
The officer added that instead of carrying four passengers, the rickshaw had seven passengers on board along with their belongings.
Inspector Yashbir Singh, station house officer of the Rajendra Park police station, said a few eyewitnesses told the police that they had reached the spot soon after the accident, and the e-rickshaw has been travelling in the wrong direction.
“There are still no CCTV cameras installed on the stretch which could have established the facts immediately,” he said.
Singh said that one of the injured named Ram Kumar, travelling on the e-rickshaw, however, alleged that the car had hit them in a head-on collision.
“From further investigation and the statements of the injured people, it can be established who was at fault but at present, we have registered a case against the car driver,” he said, adding neither the car driver or its occupants have yet approached the police.
An FIR was registered under sections 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), 304A (causing death by negligence) and 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code at Rajendra Park police station, police said.
This is the second fatal accident on Dwarka expressway or its service lanes within a month. The road was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 11. On the night of April 9, an interior designer Tanushree, 23, died when an unidentified vehicle hit her bike taxi on the main carriageway of the expressway while she was returning home from work. The taxi driver was also badly injured and the case remains unsolved since no CCTV footage was available.
A senior traffic police official said that enforcement teams are deployed on the main expressway and at all the major intersections on the service lanes below it. “However, rampant wrong-side driving is taking place as a vehicle comes out from a link road and enters into another in between the intersections. There are numerous such temporary link roads connecting the service lanes which are causing problems,” he said.
