MUMBAI: A birthday outing went horribly wrong for a group of seven young men when their SUV overturned at Malad's Aksa beach on Saturday, killing one and hurting the rest. A 22-year-old student, Ritik Kale, who was at the wheel, has been arrested.
Malwani police said they suspect at least some of the men were drunk. Kale's blood sample has been sent for tests to determine if he was driving under the influence of alcohol.
Lifeguards at Aksa beach who witnessed the incident said the SUV entered the sandy part of the beach despite guidelines forbidding it. The group live in Ghatkopar and were celebrating the birthday of Akshay Pawar, 27. They set out in his SUV and reached Aksa around 4.30 pm. "Typically, there are policemen patrolling the stretch outside the beach. But on Saturday, they were diverted to handle complaints of traffic congestion. The group took advantage of the fact that no cops were around to steer the vehicle into the sandy part of the beach," said an officer.
The SUV attracted a lot of attention as the men hollered and honked at other visitors. "Two of the men were standing on the footrail of the moving car on either side. The vehicle was moving between 60 to 70 kmph and we were concerned that the men might get hurt," said a civic lifeguard, Nathuram Suryavanshi. Police said Kale was an inexperienced driver but requested Pawar to let him take the wheel. Kale, however, couldn't control the vehicle while executing a U-turn and the SUV overturned to a side. Rahul Yadav, a 22-year-old BPO employee, had been standing on one of the footrails and was crushed.
The lifeguards rushed towards the car and were joined by other bystanders. "It took a dozen of us to move the SUV back to its upright position and extricate Yadav from beneath. We carried him on a stretcher to the main road and sent him in an autorickshaw to the hospital. His friends got out of the car on their own and two of them went to hospital with Yadav," said Suryavanshi. At the hospital, Yadav was pronounced dead by doctors. His body was sent for an autopsy.
The others in the car were Tejas Kadam, 27, Sharad Salekar, 24, Mritunjay Chaudhari, 25 and Nikhil Chikne, 23. One of them fractured his arm while the rest suffered minor injuries, police said. A case of negligence and dangerous driving was registered against Kale under provisions of IPC and Motor Vehicles Act.
