Yuvraj Mehta, a 27-year-old software engineer, was heading back home from work late on Friday when his regular drive turned fatal. His car fell into a water-filled pit in Noida and despite hours of attempts to be saved, Mehta drowned. Several shocking revelations in the case have surfaced since his death in the early hours of Saturday – from alleged lapses in rescue efforts to eyewitness being ‘forced’ by police.
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Mehta was returning home to Tata Eureka Park in Noida's Sector 150 from his Gurugram office late on January 16. As he drove into the intersection of Sector 150, his car broke through the boundary of a drain and fell into the water.
Mehta, who then climbed to the roof of the car and called his father for help at around midnight, finally drowned to death after hours of waiting and lack of rescue efforts.
Key details of the Noida techie death case
- A 27-year-old software engineer was heading back home from work on Friday night. He was driving back to Tata Eureka Park in Sector 150, where he lived with his father. His mother had passed away almost two years ago.
- According to the police, Mehta was driving a Grand Vitara when he lost control while taking a turn at the intersection of Sector 150. The vehicle hit the boundary wall of the drain and plunged into the flooded pit.
- After the crash, Mehta managed to climb on to the roof of his car and made a desperate call to his father around midnight, asking for help. “My son himself called me while he was trapped. He said, ‘Papa, I am stuck, the car has fallen into the drain’,” Mehta's father Raj Kumar told Hindustan Times.
- Eyewitnesses to the accident said that Mehta kept pleading for help for more than one and a half hour and that his car ended up in the flooded pit due to poor visibility triggered by dense fog, adding that he could not be saved despite the police arriving at the site.
- After failed rescue attempts, Mehta lost his life early on Saturday. A police officer involved in the operation said ropes thrown fell short, ladders and cranes could not bridge the distance between the road and the pit and and fog delaying the rescue teams' arrival. For nearly 90 minutes, Mehta remained on top of the car until it sank completely.
- A delivery agent, identified as Moninder, who reached the spot at around 1.45 am on Saturday decided to enter the pit himself after he saw hesitation from onlookers. “I tied a rope around my waist and went into the water myself. I searched for the youth and his car for around 30 minutes,” Moninder said adding that Mehta could be saved if help would have arrived just ten minutes earlier.
- The police roped in teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the state disaster response force, and the fire department. After several hours of searching, the teams recovered the body of the deceased.
Chief fire officer Pradeep Kumar Chaubey said that the rescue operation took some time and rescue teams were at the spot till 5 am. - Mehta's friends alleged that the teams were unable to respond in a timely manner. “The rescue teams arrived only by 2.30 am and could not even enter the water till 3.20 am,” Mehta's friend Pankaj said.
- Preliminary investigation held low visibility and speeding as possible causes of the accident, police said. “They had dug a large drain, around six to seven feet wide. Due to poor visibility and high speed, the driver appears to have lost control,” assistant commissioner of police Hemant Upadhyay said adding that although the boundary wall was damaged in parts, it was unclear how the car plunged into the basement and was fully submerged.
- In the police complaint filed by Mehta's father, which was accessed by Hindustan Times, Mehta’s father alleged that residents of Sector 150 had requested the Noida authority to install barricading and reflectors near the drain, but no action was taken.
- An FIR was filed against two building firms, which owned the deeply dug pit where Mehta's car plunged, leading to his death. A case of culpable homicide was booked against developers Lotus Greens Construction Pvt Ltd and MZ Wiztown Planners Pvt Ltd under sections 105 (culpable homicide), 106 (causing death by negligence) and 125 (act endangering life) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
- The autopsy report on January 19 said that the victim suffered asphyxia due to ante-mortem drowning, followed by cardiac arrest, which lead to his death.
- According to Additional Commissioner of Police of Gautam Budh Nagar Rajeev Narayan Mishra, the post-mortem report stated that Mehta died of drowning adding that the police preserved blood samples and viscera for further reports.
- MZ Wiztown Planner Pvt Ltd promoter Abhay Kumar on Tuesday was arrested from the Sector 150 area.
- A team of the National Disaster Response Force on Tuesday visited the spot to locate the car in the water-filled plot. After six hours, the car was eventually fished out of the plot around 6.30 pm.
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- A three-member special investigation team (SIT) was formed on the same day to probe the circumstances that led to Mehta's death. The team collected facts, met the victim’s father and also visited the site of the accident.
- The SIT visited the Noida authority’s Sector 6 office and met officials from police, administration and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), who were all summoned individually to submit documents and explain their respective roles in connection with the incident.
- On the same day, the delivery agent Moninder, who had tried to save Mehta said the police gave him a ‘script’. He said that he was called by the police who had told him that senior officers wanted to talk to him regarding the case. When he reached there, they took him to a park, close to Knowledge Park police station and scolded him for speaking to the media. “I was directed to give statements in favour of the police, saying that cops were inside the water and did all possible efforts to rescue Yuvraj Mehta,” Moninder said. “They also verbally gave me a script and recorded a video. As I was scared, I said ‘okay’ and agreed to follow the directions, but I decided that I am the only eyewitness in the case and I will stand with the truth,” Monider told Hindustan Times.
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- A three-member special investigation team (SIT) was formed on the same day to probe the circumstances that led to Mehta's death. The team collected facts, met the victim’s father and also visited the site of the accident.
- The SIT visited the Noida authority’s Sector 6 office and met officials from police, administration and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), who were all summoned individually to submit documents and explain their respective roles in connection with the incident.
- On the same day, the delivery agent Moninder, who had tried to save Mehta said the police gave him a ‘script’. He said that he was called by the police who had told him that senior officers wanted to talk to him regarding the case. When he reached there, they took him to a park, close to Knowledge Park police station and scolded him for speaking to the media. “I was directed to give statements in favour of the police, saying that cops were inside the water and did all possible efforts to rescue Yuvraj Mehta,” Moninder said. “They also verbally gave me a script and recorded a video. As I was scared, I said ‘okay’ and agreed to follow the directions, but I decided that I am the only eyewitness in the case and I will stand with the truth,” Monider told Hindustan Times.
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(With inputs from correspondents)
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