The mangled auto in Indirapuram

GHAZIABAD: An Audi dashing down an Indirapuram road crashed head on into an auto minutes past Friday midnight, killing all four people in the three-wheeler on the spot.

Police are looking for Manish Rawat, neuro-surgeon at Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital, who owns the Audi. It’s not yet known if the doctor was at the wheel.

His colleagues could not throw light on his whereabouts. Rawat’s flat in Vasundhara’s Olive County housing society was locked and his cellphone switched off.

Among those who died were software engineer Rinky Yadav, a 38-year-old from Kanpur who lived in Noida and worked with HCL and two of her family friends, Yajuvendra Singh (40) and Vishal Singh (25), also from Kanpur. Vishal was in Noida for a job interview and had recently got engaged. He and Yajuvendra were cousins. Sanjiv, the driver of the auto who also died, has a three-year-old daughter and a wife who is seven months’ pregnant.

The ferocity of the impact could be gauged from the state of the auto, which landed on its head, possibly after taking several tumbles, and was reduced to a heap of twisted metal. The Audi Q7 was abandoned after the accident and was found nearby with its bumper and bonnet damaged. Based on information from an eyewitness, police said there were probably two people in the Audi, including the driver, who ran away after the accident.

The Audi’s registration number led the cops to a house in Delhi’s Sarita Vihar, where Rawat no longer lives. An Olive County sticker on the windscreen led the cops to the right address, Tower A5, Flat No. 902. A book on ‘Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation’ was found lying on the car’s back seat.

The accident happened on a two-lane road adjacent to the Hindon canal that passes under NH-24 and goes towards Mayur Vihar and Noida. The Audi was headed for Vasundhara while the auto was moving in the opposite direction, towards Noida. Rinky and her friends, police said, were returning to her flat in Noida when the accident happened. The spot is in Gyan Khand-1, close to Gaur Green Avenue housing society.

“The accident happened around 12.15am. The car’s occupants fled the scene, leaving it behind. We are told by an eyewitness there were two people in the car at the time,” said Pradeep Tripathi, SHO, Indirapuram. “It was a head-on collision. Since the air bags had opened, we presume the occupants may not have suffered serious injuries,” Tripathi added.

Rawat is an assistant professor in the neurology department at Safdarjung. Originally from Agra, his colleagues said Rawat had joined recently. “I have been trying to get in touch him since morning,” said a fellow doctor. “His phone is switched off,”

Narender Singh, Yajuvendra and Vishal’s uncle, said, “Yajuvendra, Vishal and Rinky had come to meet a relative in Indirapuram and were returning to Rinky’s flat.”



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