Woman taking husband’s body home killed in Pune accident

PUNE: An ambulance driver and a woman died and her two sons were seriously injured when a speeding truck hit the vehicle carrying the body of her husband near Chandni Chowk on the Katraj-Dehu Road bypass around 5am on Friday.
Hinjewadi police officers said the ambulance, which had started from Taloja in Navi Mumbai for Mehboobnagar near Hyderabad, had stopped after one of its rear tyres deflated. Driver Mahesh Vishwanath Sarwade (44) was replacing the tyre, while the woman, Sitabai Hari Chavan (54), and her two sons, Raja (35) and Manohar (26), were standing nearby.

At this moment, the truck, which was on its way to Satara from Pimpri, came from the rear and hit the ambulance that was standing on a jack. The ambulance, in turn, hit the victims under the impact of the dash, leaving Sarwade and Chavan dead and Raja and Manohar seriously injured.
Senior inspector Balkrishna Sawant of the Hinjewadi police said, “Fearing any assault by people, the truck driver kept driving ahead for some distance before stopping and abandoning the heavy vehicle. We are searching for him and have contacted the truck owner from Pimpri.”
The officer said, “The two injured men have been admitted to a private hospital and are out of danger. The relatives will decide where and how to take the bodies of the woman and her husband,” said Sawant.
Sitabai was a housewife. Hari (56), who was an autorickshaw driver by profession, died of cardiac arrest on Friday morning.
Sub-inspector Ajit Kakade said, “The family members decided to take Hari’s body to their native village at Mehboobnagar near Hyderabad for the final rites. They started from Taloja in an ambulance. As the ambulance tyre deflated, Sarwade, Sitabai and her two sons got down from the vehicle.”
He said, “Sarwade started replacing the tyre and the other three stood near him. The truck following the ambulance was proceeding at a heavy speed. The truck driver failed to locate the ambulance on the road and hit it. The rear section of the ambulance subsequently hit the four persons.”
Sawant said, “Infrastructure development project is going on in the Chandni Chowk area. The police will study if the infrastructure work contributed to the accident on the spot or whether it was the truck driver’s fault.”