Delhi: Audi driver who hit juice seller returned to check for CCTV cameras

Audi driver Rajeev Malhotra had reportedly returned to the spot a day later posing as a curious onlooker to check if there were any CCTV cameras in the vicinity that could have caught the accident.

The man who had hit a 25-year-old juice seller in central Delhi on Saturday night returned to the scene of his crime the following morning to check if there were any CCTV cameras, police said. The Delhi Police arrested the driver on Monday evening.

The man reportedly stopped at the spot pretending to be a curious onlooker who wanted to see the ‘bloody spot’ where a man had died after being impaled by the iron rods on the central verge of the road a night before, the officer said. (HT FILE)

On Saturday night, Manoj Yadav was impaled after he was allegedly hit by a speeding car in central Delhi’s ITO. The victim was flung in the air on impact and landed on the grilles of a road divider which pierced his torso.

A police officer said investigations had revealed that the driver Rajeev Malhotra, a property dealer, left the white Audi car at his friend’s house in Noida and returned to work the following morning in another car. While driving to his Ansari road office, the accused stopped at the spot pretending to be a curious onlooker who wanted to see the ‘bloody spot’ where a man had died a night before, the officer said.

Delhi Police on Monday afternoon detained Malhotra in connection with the case. Malhotra, a GK-1 resident, was identified after the police team scanned CCTV footages from at least 20 different routes near the accident spot.

Late Monday evening, the police formally arrested the GK-1 resident and recovered the white Audi car.

Manoj Yadav was among the thousands of homeless men who live on the Delhi streets. He slept on the roof of a roadside juice shop in central Delhi, where he worked, more than 1,200 kilometres away from his family in Supaul, Bihar.

Manoj had left his shop outside the Doll museum in ITO, and was crossing the Bahadur Shah Zafar (BSZ) Marg in ITO to share a dinner with homeless rickshaw-pullers who lived on the central verge of the road, when a speeding white Audi car hit him. Manoj was flung at least 10-15 feet in the air and landed on an iron grill median — the rods impaling his chest and killing him on the spot.

“The man’s body was stuck in the grilles. We took him to the hospital but he was declared dead on arrival. It is a case of hit and run and we have registered an FIR under sections of negligence and rash and negligent driving,” DCP central, MS Randhawa said.

Manoj’s body was taken to his home town in Bihar by his younger brother and friends.