Kabaddi player dies in highway mishap

A national level kabaddi player died along with three others after their car crashed at high speed into a BMC clean-up truck in Vikhroli on the Eastern Express Highway in the wee hours of Thursday.

A national level kabaddi player died along with three others after their car crashed at high speed into a BMC clean-up truck in Vikhroli on the Eastern Express Highway in the wee hours of Thursday.

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The victims were Harish Keshav Ghavankar, 60, an architect, his wife Sanjivani Ghavankar, 54, the athlete, and Keshav’s sister Shubhangi Ghavankar, 61. Sanjivani had represented the state and Bank of Maharasthra, for a decade.

According to the Vikhroli police, Harish who was at the wheel of the Ford Fiesta drove headlong into the BMC truck. “A clean-up truck has a vacuum cleaner attached through which it sucks in dust on the roads. The truck moves at a very slow speed during the process. The car that the victims were in had been travelling at a very high speed when it crashed,” said SB Gaikwad, senior police inspector from Vikhroli police station.

The trio, residents of Mulund, had gone to Kurla to visit a relative and were heading back when the accident occurred around 1 am near Bhandup.

The police, who were patrolling the area, took the victims to Wockhardt Hospital in Mulund where doctors declared them dead on arrival. The police arrested the truck driver Bharattula Hamidullah Khan, 40.

“There are certain guideless to be followed during the clean-up. A person should stand on the road with light reflecting instruments like radium triangles and blinkers to warn vehicles. There was no such person deployed in this case,” Gaikwad added.