New Delhi: Delhi’s notoriety as the accident capital of India was bolstered by another death last week, when a 72-year-old was hit and dragged some distance by a car while on an evening stroll.
The deceased, Ajit Lal Tandon, was hit by a grey sedan in the Greater Kailash area on 30 November, and pulled for nearly 60 metres.
Tandon was taken to a nearby hospital by passersby where the private firm employee was declared dead.
Police identified the vehicle Wednesday and arrested its owner Tarun Arora, who was driving the car.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Chandan Choudhary said Arora had no previous history of road misdemeanours, or of drunken driving. “He said the victim suddenly appeared before his car while he was on his way from GK to Kalkaji,” he said.
Choudhary said Arora was booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way) and 304A (causing death by negligence), but was released on bail according to procedure.
He owns a shop in Okhla that prints invitations and visiting cards.
Delhi tops road fatalities in country
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released its data Sunday for the year 2022, which showed Delhi had the highest number of road fatalities than any other city.
Delhi recorded 5,387 accidents and 1,412 deaths in road crashes and accidents under the NCRB category, “Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2022”.
Meanwhile, road accidents accounted for 97.3 percent of all traffic accidents across 53 mega cities. They recorded 68,236 traffic accidents, in which 17,680 were killed and 57,246 injured.
In traffic accidents too, Delhi came first with 2,103 deaths, followed by Jaipur with 918.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
Also read: Pedestrians most vulnerable to road accident fatalities in Delhi, data shows