NEW DELHI: Four people died after a cargo container weighing more than 35 tonnes fell on an autorickshaw in which they were travelling.
The accident took place near Indira Gandhi Stadium in central Delhi on Saturday morning. Police have arrested the truck driver and his helper.
The deceased have been identified as Surender Yadav, 40, the auto driver, his nephew Jay Yadav, 32, residents of Shastri Park in northeast Delhi, and passengers Komal Singh, 35, and Tata Prakash, 13. The auto was on its way to Seelampur and had reached the flyover loop adjacent to Gate No 16 of IG Stadium at 6.50am when it encountered the truck carrying the container.
Driver & helper of truck carrying rice sacks caught
A police officer said, "There is a dangerous curve on the road at that point. Since the truck was being driven at high speed, it careened there and lost its balance. The almost 10ft-high container snapped its fixings on the flatbed truck and fell on the autorickshaw."
The officer disclosed that an emergency response vehicle patrolling the area saw the accident and informed the cops about the accident in front of gate No. 16 (IGI stadium). He said it took at least two hours for the fire department and police teams to retrieve the bodies from the flattened three-wheeler. "They had to cut though the mangled remains of the auto using gas cutters to get to the bodies. We also had to use a hydra crane," the officer said.
Police arrested Pratish Chaudhary, 29, and his helper, Nitish, 24, later in the day. "We are probing all aspects of the case, including whether the driver was driving under the influence of alcohol," the officer said. Shweta Chauhan, DCP (Central), said that preliminary investigations showed that the truck, which was loaded with rice, was going from Sonipat in Haryana to the Tughlaqabad depot in south Delhi.
According to relatives, the deceased, Singh and Prakash, disembarked from a bus from UP near Sarai Kale Khan bus terminus and hired the autorickshaw to go to Seelampur there. The boy and his uncle had come to Delhi for the first time. "Komal was a cook by profession and Prakash, his nephew, was a student," said Diwan Singh, a kin.
In the afternoon, when TOI visited the spot, it found glass pieces littering the road. The container was lying on its side while the truck was parked nearby. Ironically, a sticker pasted on the truck read, 'Obey traffic rules'.
