Delhi: Eight-year-old crushed by car being driven by juvenile

The dead eight-year-old was later identified as Nikhil Singh. He lived with his brother, Nihal, 4, and their parents in Najafgarh’s Prem Nagar neighbourhood

An eight-year-old boy was crushed to death and his four-year-old brother hospitalised with fractures after they came in between a wall and a car being driven allegedly by a juvenile neighbour in outer Delhi’s Najafgarh.

An eight-year-old boy was crushed to death and his four-year-old brother hospitalised with fractures after they came in between a wall and a car being driven allegedly by a juvenile neighbour in outer Delhi’s Najafgarh.

The accident, police said, took place on Monday morning when the two siblings were playing with a ball on an empty plot of land that serves as a parking lot for residents.

The dead eight-year-old was later identified as Nikhil Singh. He lived with his brother, Nihal, 4, and their parents in Najafgarh’s Prem Nagar neighbourhood. Their father, Sandeep Singh, sells vegetable for a living.

A case of rash driving and causing death by negligence was registered at the Najafgarh police station and the 17-year-old suspect apprehended. An investigator said the juvenile’s father will be booked too under the Motor Vehicle Act for handing his car over to someone not authorised to drive.

“We registered a case of causing death by negligence (IPC section 304A) and not under the more stringent culpable homicide not amounting to murder (IPC section 304) because the vehicle was not being driven rashly. It was only being reversed by the boy in the parking space,” the officer told HT over phone.

“My sons were playing in the parking lot when a neighbour’s son suddenly reversed his Swift Dzire car and hit them. My older son got stuck between the car and the wall and was left badly injured. My younger son too collapsed after being hit,” Nikhil’s father said.

The boys’ grandmother, Ranjana Singh, said that the two boys were immediately rushed to different hospitals, but Nikhil was declared brought dead. “Nihal was discharged from the ICU yesterday. He will survive,” Ranjana told HT on Thursday.

Ranjana said the juvenile suspect abandoned the car and fled the spot after the accident. He was, however, spotted by some locals who rushed to the spot on hearing the cries of the children. He was later apprehended from his house.