Mumbai: College student behind mishap that killed two

The mangled remains of the rickshaw that the SUV rammed into

The Vanrai police in Goregaon on Thursday arrested a 22-year-old college student whose vehicle crashed into an autorickshaw, killing two people including its passenger and driver. The police have arrested the accused student, Govindham Yadav, a resident of Bhiwandi. Two people riding a bike were also injured in the accident.

According to the police, the accident took place on Wednesday at 2 am at a Jogeshwari flyover on the Western Express Highway. The deceased were the passenger, Jinoy Molakpalli, a resident of Lokhandwala at Kandivli who worked at Marol, and the auto driver, Rohit Pandit, 22, who stayed at Marol with four friends and was from Jharkhand.

Also read: Mumbai: Two killed, two injured in road accident

The police said the accused Govindham Yadav had hired the SUV that he was driving. Pics/Anurag Ahire

The police said Molakpalli had booked the Uber auto and was going home when a speeding SUV jumped the divider after the driver probably lost control and crashed into the auto.

Family, friends react

Speaking to mid-day, a relative of Pandit said, "Rohit's family is in Jharkhand and he had come to Mumbai 4-5 months back for a job and started driving the auto. He planned to go to his village next March to get married. After the accident, other auto drivers stopped their vehicles and rushed both the injured to a hospital but they died. The drivers also tried to catch the accused car driver but he managed to flee. We are very sure that the car driver was not alone but with his friends. The car was speeding."

Molakpalli's friend said, "Jinoy has two kids aged 10 and 12 and he stayed with his wife and mother at Lokhandwala at Kandivli. We found that three airbags had deployed in the accused's car after the accident, but not the fourth one behind the driver's seat. We suspect that there were more people inside the car and they were having fun during the drive."

(left) Rohit Pandit, the auto driver, had come to Mumbai to earn a living, Jinoy Molakpalli, his passenger, was on the way home from work

Sachin Kaku, one of those injured in the incident told mid-day, "The speeding car jumped the divider and crashed into the auto which crashed into our bike. Me and my friend were seriously injured and are in hospital. We received multiple injuries on the head, back and legs. The car was in great speed." This reporter also saw that three airbags had deployed in the accused's car but the one behind the driver's seat had not. Recently, business tycoon Cyrus Mistry died in an accident at Palghar, wherein it was found that as he didn't use a seat belt, the airbag hadn't deployed.

‘Yadav was untraceable'

PSI Rahul Devade of Vanrai police station said, "The accused driver, Yadav, had rented the SUV sports car on a zoom car application. He was untraceable after the incident. We took his details from the zoom car company and traced him. We arrested him from Bhiwandi on Thursday at 3 am. Yadav claimed he was alone in the car but we are verifying this. He said he was a student but had dropped out few months back. We produced him in the Borivli court which remanded him in jail custody. We also took his blood samples and sent them for testing to check he was drunk." On Friday the police handed over the bodies of the victims to their relatives. Pandit's family took his body to Jharkhand for the funeral.