Teen returning from work crushed by car

NEW DELHI: If he was identified on time, 19-year-old Aakash Kumar would have survived the accident, his parents said. The teen was crossing the Firozeshah Road to return home after work, when he was hit by a speeding Swift Dzire on Thursday night. He was dragged for 200 metres, before cops forced the driver to stop and took him out from under the vehicle. The driver was held on the spot.

Following the incident, AAP MP Sanjay Singh tweeted a video, saying that the youth had died since it took more than 25 minutes for the cops to decide on the jurisdiction of a police station.

DCP (New Delhi) Madhur Verma, however, said that Kumar was taken to the hospital within 10 minutes by a police constable “We have booked the driver for causing death due to negligence and rash driving. We also conducted an enquiry to establish whether there was a delay on our part, it was found that the incident happened around 9.30pm and the victim had reached the hospital by 9.40pm,” said DCP Verma.

Eyewitnesses said that he was breathing while being taken to the hospital but no one, including his cousin, who had helped cops pull him out, could recognise him since his face was badly damaged.

When Kumar did not return home that night, his parents kept calling on his mobile phone but it turned out that someone had stolen the device and switched it off after it rang a few times.

Family members said that Aakash was an employee of a canteen at the Income Tax office near ITO, and was heading back home when the accident happened. A police team posted at a checkpost, blocked the road and held the driver, later identified as Bhawani Singh.

“My son would have survived if he was identified. Someone had stolen his phone so the police could not contact us. By the time we could locate him and reach the hospital, he had died,” said Narender Kumar, Aakash’s father. Narender works at the CPWD headquarters.

It was found that the car was hired by the DRDO, and Singh was returning home to Karawal Nagar in a hurry. During interrogation, he claimed that he had lost control of the vehicle, after which he panicked and tried to flee, unaware that Kumar was stuck under the car.