A 27-year-old man from Delhi died on the spot after his car collided with a pickup truck near Atlas Chowk on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway on Wednesday morning.Such was the impact of the accident that the front portion of the car was completely damaged, said police.
The deceased has been identified as Shafat Ali, who worked as a driver in a private bakery in Sector 37. He was a resident of Uttam Nagar in Delhi.
The owner of the bakery, Gurdeep Singh Tuli, registered a complaint against the unidentified truck driver. In the complaint, Singh stated Ali left the bakery around 7am with packets of chapatis to feed cows in a cowshed located in Vasant Kunj.
According to police, the accident took place around 8am. The pickup truck driver had allegedly stationed his vehicle on the right-most lane of the carriageway, carrying traffic from Manesar towards Delhi, after one of the tyres of the vehicle punctured. The driver had placed a hydraulic jack below the truck to change the tyre. However, he had not put up any reflectors nor did he turn on the hazard lights, said police adding that the truck driver fled the spot after the accident.
“The vehicle was so severely damaged that the body was completely stuck in the car. We had to use a crane to remove the body from the vehicle and then take it to the mortuary in Civil Lines. The bakery owner identified the driver’s body at the mortuary. We have seized the pickup car and investigations are underway to identify and arrest the accused,” said Jitender Singh, assistant sub-inspector (ASI), Gurugram police, who is the investigating officer (IO) in the case.
Based on Tuli’s complaint, the police registered an FIR against the unidentified driver under sections 283 (causing danger, obstruction, injury to any person in public way), 304-A (causing death by negligence) and 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees) of the IPC at the sector 17/18 police station.
Following the accident, Gurugram police barricaded the accident spot with traffic cones, and a crane was also used to tow the hatchback.The car was removed around 9am, within an hour of the accident.
The accident also resulted in an hour-long snarl between IFFCO Chowk and Shankar Chowk on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, due to which commuters faced a five to 10 minutes delay in their travel time.