CCTV footage helps arrest three men involved in hit-and-run that killed cycle-riding doctor

Three men were arrested on Thursday for mowing down and killing a cycle-riding doctor in south Delhi’s Malviya Nagar on Monday.

Three men were arrested on Thursday for mowing down and killing a cycle-riding doctor in south Delhi’s Malviya Nagar on Monday.

The incident had happened at a traffic junction near the Police Training School in Malviya Nagar. (File photo for representation)

The 52-year-old doctor, Jai Prakash Yadav, was returning to his home in Greater Kailash-1 in the afternoon when the incident happened. Yadav was posted at an MCD polyclinic in south Delhi’s Mehrauli and served as the south zone’s nodal officer for Covid-19.

Surveillance footage from close to the accident site helped police identify the car and thereafter, its occupants: 37-year-old Vijay (identified only by his first name),an assistant at an automobile showroom; and 35-year-olds Ajay (identified only by his first name) and Sandeep Pal Singh, both of whom sold and repaired vehicles.

“The three friends have told us that they were driving from their homes in east Delhi’s Mandawali to the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in Vasant Kunj. They are still being questioned.They did not carry any curfew passes to move about during the lockdown and were not into providing any essential service either,” said deputy commissioner of police (South) Atul Kumar Thakur.

Another police officer, on condition of anonymity, said that arrested men claimed they were on their way to give blood to a friend admitted in the hospital and that they hit the doctor when he took an unexpected turn. “Each of these claims are yet to be verified,” this officer added.

The incident had happened at a traffic junction near the Police Training School in Malviya Nagar. As part of the probe, police obtained surveillance footage from CCTV cameras along the route. None showed the actual accident.

However, the doctor’s colleague who had been following him in a car that day had given police a clue: it was a white car.

“We checked the footage for all white cars passing on that route around 3.30pm when the accident happened. We found five such white cars,” said Thakur.

Armed with the registration numbers of those five cars, the police physically checked the owners of each of them. “One belonged to a man named Sonu in Rohtak. On Wednesday, we visited him and got to know that he had given the car to his friend, Vicky, in Sonepat. Further inquiry revealed that Vicky had let his friend, Sandeep Pal Singh, drive the car. Singh was questioned and he said that he and his two friends, Ajay and Vijay, were driving the car to Vasant Kunj when the accident happened, said the DCP. “All three of them have been arrested and the car - a Maruti Swift - was recovered from Mandawali. It bore the marks of an accident. The men have confessed to being involved in the hit-and-run case,” said the DCP.

“The car occupants had driven away without caring to help the injured doctor,” said the DCP. The doctor had later succumbed to his injuries.