Drunk cabbie mows down cableman on expressway

HYDERABAD: An employee of Act Fibernet was mowed down and two of his colleagues suffered serious injuries when a Uber cab driver, under the influence of alcohol, crashed his car into them on PVNR Expressway in the early hours of Friday. The driver, Mahender Goud, was arrested and sent to judicial remand after he was produced before a court.

When police subjected him to a breath analyser test, Goud’s reading was 170 mg/100ml, which is way above the permissible level. R Kataiah, 40, of Veldurthy village in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, died on the spot. M Sudhakar, 22, and N Suresh, 22, of Mahabubabad district suffered multiple fractures but are out of danger, police said. The workers had worn reflective jackets.

The accident occurred at 1 am when Kataiah, Sudhakar, Suresh along with two others — J Venkat Reddy and A Muttaiah — were laying fibre optic cable for CCTV cameras on PVNR Expressway at pillar number 179 when a speeding Hyundai Eon car (TS 15 UC 1529) heading towards Shamshabad from Mehdipatnam overshot the reflective cones on the carriage way and rammed them.

“Kataiah fell on the windscreen as the car crashed into the side railing of the expressway. Under the impact of the collision, Kataiah was thrown off the Expressway. He fell on the road below and died on the spot,” Rajendranagar inspector G Suresh said. The driver, Goud, 30, of Laxmiguda in Mylardevpally managed to drive the damaged vehicle ahead but owing to a mechanichal failure, stopped it at Mylardevpally where a police patrolling team caught him. “Goud was heading home without any passengers at the time of the accident. We arrested him,” the inspector said.

Police said the Act Fibernet staff, who are laying the cable from Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital to Aramgarh, had obtained the necessary persmission from the authorities concerned and working from 11 pm to 5 am every night. “The victims set up reflective cones where they were working. Several vehicles had taken the route. Goud did not notice the men at work as he was under the influence of liquor,” Suresh said. The driver was booked under section 304(ii) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC. Act Fibernet offers high-speed broadband through optical fibre network.