Teen on joyride rams into string of vehicles, transit house

MUMBAI: A joyride for a 17-year-old collegian turned into a disaster for four auto-rickshaw drivers, a family of four, a car owner and a two-wheeler owner at K C Marg, Bandra Reclamation, on Sunday morning. However, the teenager's family agreed to pay full compensation to all the victims and therefore, the latter were in the process of withdrawing the case.
At 10.15 am on Sunday, a Qualis crashed into four auto-rickshaws, which in turned rammed into a Maruti 800 and a Pulsar bike parked on the footpath outside a political party's office at K C Marg, also known as Reclamation Road.
Santosh Andale, an onlooker and volunteer at the political party office, claimed, "I was reaching my office when suddenly, the Qualis rammed into the Maruti and bike parked outside my office. Due to immense force, the Maruti was pushed into a transit house, knocking down a bike in the process and almost running over a three-year-old girl playing inside the house. The auto-rickshaw incident happened just minutes before this. Luckily, the child and her family members were left unhurt.''
According to another onlooker, not only were the auto-rickshaws damaged, two of the four drivers also received minor injuries and were rushed to Bhabha hospital. The traumatised three-year-old child Arka and her mother Anjum Sheikh were taken to Bhabha hospital to check for any kind of internal injuries.
A senior official from Bandra police station said the teenager was out for a joyride on his father's Qualis and did not realise that he had applied full pressure on the accelerator. In fear, he lost control of his car, causing the accident.
A panchnama has been conducted and further investigations and verifications alongwith property and vehicle damages are in the process.
Onlookers claimed that had the Maruti rammed further into the transit house, the probability of the same bursting a gas cylinder used to cook food in the house would have been higher.
The police have withheld the name of the Qualis driver. Anjum Sheikh and her husband Sayyed Azim Sayyed Musa were too shocked to comment on the accident.
kinjal.shah@timesgroup.com