Truck hits police picket, kills man
New Delhi: A man was killed and a teenager grievously hurt after being hit by a speeding truck at a police picket in east Delhi’s Mayur Vihar on the night between Aug 31 and Sept 1. The truck driver jumped from his vehicle and fled from the spot, but was arrested later.
The truck was coming from Noida at high speed in the early hours of Sunday when the driver lost control and rammed into the police barricades.The vehicle was loaded with sacks of potatoes. After the crash, the personnel manning the picket and the police control room alerted the local police station about the accident. A police team reached the site and summoned a crane, which put the truck back on its wheels. A man lay crushed underneath along with a mangled motorcycle and car. Another person was injured.
The crushed person was taken to Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital where he was declared brought dead and his body was preserved in the mortuary. The injured youth, identified as 18-year-old Himesh of Shastri Nagar, was admitted to Max Hospital in Patparganj. The doctors attending on the teenager declared him unfit to give any statement to the cops.
A case was registered against the driver, who was arrested later, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita’s sections 281 (rash driving or riding on a public way), 125 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 106 (causing death by negligence) at the Mayur Vihar Phase 1 police station. The crime team inspected the spot, took photographs and picked up evidence and samples from the accident spot.
Accidents involving recklessly driven trucks are on the rise in the city. A week ago on Aug 26, five people sleeping on the footpath in northeast Delhi’s Shastri Nagar were run over by a Canter truck in the early hours, resulting in the death of three of them. Before that, a woman riding pillion on a motorcycle was crushed by a speeding truck in north Delhi’s Wazirabad. A pedestrian was killed by a truck being driven at excessive speed in west Delhi recently.
These fatal incidents highlight the urgent need for police and traffic authorities to crack down on such errant drivers, who normally race across the city’s streets in large numbers after 11pm, putting lives in danger. According to police data, there were around 450 fatal accidents involving trucks and heavy transport vehicles in 2023. Data disseminated by the traffic police reveals that over 23,000 commercial vehicles have been penalised for permit violations in Delhi this year until Aug.
