GREATER NOIDA
: Three days after an
accident on the Eastern Peripheral Expressway claimed eight lives, police claimed to have identified the heavy vehicle that caused it.
“On Tuesday, a police team visited several toll plazas located near the accident spot to identify the vehicle. We managed to identify one truck from the CCTV footage. The front of the truck was damaged,” said Jaiveer Singh, senior sub inspector at Site V police station. The truck is registered in Ajmer, Rajasthan. “Three teams have been formed to trace the vehicle, of which one has been sent to Ajmer to question the owner,” Singh added.
The accident occurred on Sunday night around 9pm, when the overloaded Maruti Eeco van was hit by a vehicle just ahead of the Sirsa toll on the Eastern Peripheral Expressway.
The absence of CCTV cameras along the 135-km Eastern Peripheral Expressway meant police had to rely only on the cameras at toll plazas, slowing down the investigation.
Those in the van were families of two brothers – Asim, a primary school teacher, and Yaseen, a farmer. Of the 13 people in the van, on their way home to Bulandshahr after attending a wedding in Haryana’s Ballabgarh, six were declared dead on arrival at a nearby government hospital and two others succumbed to injuries later. Of the five others, an 11-year-old is still critical. “Sidra has been admitted to the trauma centre at AIIMS. She is in a coma and is in the ICU. The others have been discharged,” Iftekhar Mewari, a family member, said.
After the accident, family members filed a complaint, following which an FIR was filed for rash driving and voluntarily causing hurt.