Pune: Grievously injured after drunk driver hits her scooter, techie dies in hospital

PUNE: A 22-year-old woman working at the Eon IT Park at Kharadi died of injuries and burns when her scooter caught fire soon after being hit from behind by a car driven by an IT professional, who police said was inebriated.
The woman’s scooter was burnt to its metal framework in the accident which happened on Janak Baba Dargah Road near Citi Vista building in Kharadi shortly after midnight of Thursday.The Chandannagar police said the woman, Shraddha Madhukar Bangad, was also an IT professional living in Kharadi for the past two years. She was working at the Eon IT Park in Kharadi and was originally from the Balbhuvan Garoba Maidan area in Nagpur.
A 22-year-old woman working at the Eon IT Park at Kharadi died of injuries and burns when her scooter caught fire soon after being hit from behind by a car driven by an IT professional, who police said was inebriated.
The police on Friday arrested the car driver, Manish Baliram Chaudhari (37), from Pashan Road, for offences under sections 304-II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 279 (rash and negligent driving) of the IPC, and violation of the Motor Vehicles Act’s (MVA) provisions.
The scooter was reduced to a heap of metal after it caught fire
Grievously injured after drunk driver hits her scooter, techie dies in hospital
Conviction in a culpable homicide case can result in imprisonment for up to 10 years. Chaudhari was produced before a magisterial court which remanded him in judicial custody for 14 days. He was sent to the Yerawada central prison.
Sub-inspector Kiran Varal of the Chandannagar police said, “Chaudhari’s medical test revealed that he had consumed alcohol above the permissible limit. He too had admitted to the police that he had consumed liquor before the incident.”
A senior traffic police officer told TOI, “The legal limit of blood alcohol content (BAC) is 0.03% or 30mg per 100ml of blood. A person found driving with a BAC level higher than that can be booked under section 185 of the MVA and imprisoned up to six months or fined up to Rs2,000 or both.”
Varal said, “Bangad was on her way back home from office on her Scooty Pep. Chaudhari, also employed with a company in the same IT park, was heading to his house on Pashan Sus road in his car. Chaudhari’s car hit Bangad’s scooter from behind at full speed, sending the two-wheeler skidding on the concrete road.”
“We suspect fuel might have spilt out of the scooter onto the road. The sparks emanating from the skidding vehicle could have ignited the fire that engulfed the two-wheeler and caused burn injuries to the victim. An inspection by an expert from the regional transport office will help us establish what led to the fire,” Varal said.
The accident left the front guard and a portion of chassis of the car completely bent. The scooter was burnt to such an extent that only its metal framework could be seen.
Two passersby, Yash Gupta and Subhash Gaware, rushed Bangad to a nearby private hospital. The medical authorities there advised them to take her to the Sassoon general hospital as their facility did not have the facilities to treat burn injuries.
A police team rushed to the spot after receiving a call and took Chaudhari for questioning. Around 5am, Sassoon hospital’s medical authorities told the police that Bangad had succumbed to injuries. “An advance post-mortem report mentioned the cause of death as multiple injuries associated with burns,” Varal said.