A 25-year-old lawyer was killed after the Maturi Ritz car he was driving crashed into a tree near a road divider on Aruna Asaf Ali Road in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj area in the early hours of Sunday.

Police said they were informed of the incident around 4.30am, when the occupants of a call-centre cab, while returning from work, saw the car in a damaged condition and its driver critically injured. They had called the police control room.

Police said that a case of rash driving and death by negligence has been registered at Vasant Kunj (North) police station.

According to police, the incident took place in front of the National Plant Genome Research Institute on the road leading towards Ber Sarai.

After getting the call from the passersby, a police team reached the spot and rushed the injured man to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead.

The documents found in his possession helped the police establish his identity and contact his family members, police said.

According to police, the lawyer was identified as Debanjan Sarkar.

He lived with his family in the National Institute of Immunology campus, where his father is employed, police said.

Sarkar had recently completed his law course and was a practising lawyer.

A senior police officer privy to the details of the case said, “Prime facie, it appears that the owner of the Ritz car was driving his vehicle at high speed and he lost control over the vehicle. As a result, the car hit the road divider and crashed into a tree. We are waiting for his autopsy report to ascertain if he was drunk at the time of the accident.”

Police said they have learnt that Sarkar was returning home after attending a party at his friend’s home.

“Whether he was drunk or not is a matter of investigation,” the officer said.

First Published: Nov 19, 2018 09:14 IST