Hit-and-run: Victim recounts recklessness of truck driver who killed four

Rajiv Kohli, whose Fiat Punto car was the first of the three vehicles to be hit by a speeding dumper truck on Tuesday night was plain lucky to have survived. The accident took place on the two-lane state highway connecting Faridabad and Ballabgarh.

“The truck came from nowhere and crashed into my car. After hitting my car, the dumper did not slow down. It hit a Scorpio and then a motorcycle. I was saved because of the two air bags which opened in time, but my car is badly damaged,” said Kohli, who suffered severe injuries in the accident and filed a complaint against the unidentified driver.

The accident, which left four of a family dead and three injured, one of them a one-year-old boy, took place near Harchandpur village in Sohna, 35km from Gurugram. The accident site is a straight road with no curves or junction near the Harchandpur village on Faridabad-Ballbgarh road. The area is dark as there are no streetlights.

The truck driver left his vehicle and fled. The truck was later seized by the police.

“The truck driver was speeding, and driving in a zigzag manner, giving us no time to respond,” said Kohli, who was going to Delhi from Chaupanki in Rajasthan, where his firm runs a manufacturing plant.

“I suffered injuries on the face and was bleeding furiously when a man from the nearby village pulled me out of my car. He took me to a nearby pharmacy where I was given first aid. I saw the bodies of the victims lying on the road,” he said.

“I have sustained serious injuries; my chest and hand are in bad shape. I have lacerations in the mouth which require stitches,” he added.

Kohli was first taken to the Sohna Civil Hospital, from where he was referred to the Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi, but he got himself admitted to a private hospital in Prashant Vihar.

Meanwhile, the police said that they have seized the dumper and are working on leads to arrest the driver.

The bodies of the victims were handed over to their family after post-mortem examination was conducted.

“A case under sections 279, 337, 304A and 427 of the Indian Penal Code has been registered against the accused at the Sohna Sadar police station. The accused will be nabbed soon,” said Gurugram police spokesperson Ravinder Kumar.

Tuesday’s late night accident has once again highlighted the danger faced by two-wheeler riders and pedestrians on state roads. They are among the most vulnerable on Gurugram roads that are notorious for non-compliance of rules and road accident fatalities.

According to the data compiled by the Gurugram police, in 2017, 187 of the 257 accident deaths were of two-wheeler riders and pedestrians. In 2016, this section of road users accounted for 319 of 420 deaths in road accidents.

This year, too, from January till April first week, two-wheeler riders and pedestrians accounted for more than half of the 115 fatalities on Gurugram roads.