19-yr-old student dies after his car crashes into parked truck in Okhla
NEW DELHI: A 19-year-old physiotherapy student was killed when his car crashed into a parked truck when he tried to avoid driving over tree branches lying in the middle of a road in south Delhi’s Okhla in the early hours of Sunday, police said.
While no eyewitness have emerged so far, Chinmoy Biswal, deputy commissioner of police (south-east), said preliminary probe suggests that the victim was driving at a “high speed”. “There is no evidence so far of him driving under the influence of alcohol, but we will await the viscera report to be sure,” said Biswal.
The officer identified the dead man as Ansh Girdhar, a firstyear physiotherapy student at a south Delhi institute. Girdhar lived with his parents in south Delhi’s Kalkaji Extension, near the accident spot.
The DCP quoted Girdhar’s family as saying that he decided to drive to Greater Kailash around 2am to have dinner. The mishap took place when Girdhar was driving back home.
The DCP said the police received a call about the accident at 3.29am. “We reached the spot and found the mangled grey Baleno near the Crowne Plaza hotel in Okhla. Girdhar was trapped inside. We moved him to a hospital, but he died soon after,” said the DCP.
The police found no eyewitnesses, but inspected the surroundings to deduce what must have happened.
“It appears that Girdhar noticed large broken branches of a Kikar tree in the middle of the road. To avoid driving over them, he swerved to the right, but lost control. The car then hit the pavement before crashing into a parked water tanker and toppled. The airbags of the car had been deployed upon the crash, but that wasn’t enough to save Girdhar,” said the DCP.
The water tanker truck owner, Monu Kumar, said his vehicle was parked on the roadside for the last three days. “It had developed a snag because of which it had to be parked and left on the roadside. My driver would sleep in the truck at night,” said Kumar.
The police said the branches which may have caused the accident had broken from a tree along the road. It was big enough to divert traffic. “There is no evidence to suggest that someone had cut the branches. It looks like that a big vehicle, possibly a truck, may have caused the branch to break,” said the DCP.
Purchased about a year ago, the Baleno belonged to Girdhar’s father. Police said that Girdhar was driving alone at the time of the accident.