Pal burns in car, he asked hack ‘can I get a ride’
A BROOKLYN MAN, his gal pal trapped inside the flaming wreckage of his nearby car, climbed coolly into a passing taxi as the helpless woman was left to die.
A chilling cell-phone video obtained by WABC-TV News caught callous Saeed Ahmad hailing the yellow cab early Friday after escaping the roaring flames that killed passenger Harleen Grewal.
“Can I get a ride?” the manslaughter suspect asked casually as the raging fire from his luxury Infiniti 35G illuminated the 4 a.m. sky above the BrooklynQueens Expressway.
Stunned investigators found Grewal’s charred body in the passenger seat once the flames were extinguished.
“It’s unconscionable. How could you?” asked an outraged Van Christakos, 69, a Queens neighbor of the dead woman’s family. “Dial 911. Stay there! His actions are unconscionable. She was a sweetheart.”
The 25-year-old Grewal’s devastated family was sent reeling a second time by the release of the video one day after her death.
“I don’t even know what happened!” screamed her mother, Raj Grewal, outside their Astoria home. “That’s my child! She was an angel. She is an angel.”
Ahmad told police that he was dating Grewal, but friends said he was just an acquaintance who gave her a ride home.
Grewal’s boyfriend, Karan Singh Dhillon, was wracked with grief over her death.
“My baby didn’t deserve to go like this,” Dhillon wrote on Facebook. “The real good ones go away too quick.”
In an interview with the Daily News, Dhillon described Grewal as a selfless soul who always looked out for others.
“She would do anything for people,” he said. “She would give someone the clothes off her back. She would give someone food and go hungry.”
Ahmad, 23, directed the cabbie to Maimonides Medical Center as he ignored the woman trapped inside the burning vehicle only a few yards away and fled the scene, the video showed.
The suspect, still hospitalized Saturday with burns, was charged with manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, speeding and driving with a suspended license.
The suspect’s arraignment was pending as doctors treated him for burns on the neck, arms and legs. Ahmad’s brother pointed to the injuries as proof that Saeed tried to assist the victim.
“After trying to help her get out of the cars, his arms were burned, his neck was burned,” said Waheed Ahmad, 21. “You see a person die in front of you and you are in unimaginable pain, imagine what you would do.”
The video “is just causing us more pain,” Waheed said.
Grewal’s boyfriend said he has no ill will toward Ahmad.
“Anger doesn’t solve anything,” Dhillon said. “The biggest thing is forgiveness. He has to deal with what happened for the rest of his life.”
Police did not know where the couple had been or where they were headed in the early morning hours before Ahmad — speeding in and out of traffic — plowed into a median on the BQE.
The Infiniti spun out of control and burst into flames after screeching to a halt in the middle lane facing oncoming traffic. The video clearly captures the raging blaze behind Ahmad as he climbs into the yellow cab.
Ahmad, of Flatlands, Brooklyn, acknowledged downing a few drinks before the crash — although a blood test showed he was not legally drunk, police sources said.
Grewal worked for a catering company, her family said. Known to friends as Nina, she was the daughter of immigrants from the state of Punjab in northern India, according to neighbors.
“She was a very nice, very beautiful girl,” said another neighbor who worked with Grewal’s mother. “Like my own daughter.”