2 women killed in 2 separate road accidents in city on same day

MUMBAI: Tuesday saw the lives of two women being snuffed out in two separate road accidents in the city. While an 80-year-old woman was mowed down by a crane at Chheda Nagar junction in Ghatkopar East early morning, a 26-year-old woman was crushed under a SUV’s wheels in Malad late evening. Both could not make it to the hospital on time, so grievous were their injuries.
At around 6 am, Kamla Jagannath Mudaliar, 80, was on her way to clean the Murugan Temple in Chhedanagar Colony in Chembur, something she had been doing religiously for the past 10 years, when she was hit by a crane at Chheda Nagar Junction in Chembur West. The driver fled with the vehicle after the accident. Passersby called the police, and she was rushed to Rajawadi Hospital around 7 am but was declared dead before admission.
At around 10 pm, Mehendi artist Shahana Iqbal Qazi, 26, was walking back home from the Metro station in Malad after a work appointment when she was hit by a Ford Endeavor near Auris Building complex off Link Road. The driver of the SUV, identified as Anup Sinha who works in merchant navy, took her to a nearby hospital where she was declared dead on arrival.
According to police, Sinha was drunk when he rammed his vehicle onto the victim. The Malad police arrested the 42-year-old man for culpable homicide not amounting to murder early on Wednesday. Ravi Adane, senior police inspector of the Malad police station, said Sinha’s medical examination has confirmed that he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. He was produced before a metropolitan magistrate court on Wednesday and was remanded to police custody.
Shahana, who stayed in a slum rehabilitation building near the accident spot, is survived by her husband and two children.
After the accident, angry locals vandalised the SUV, breaking its windows and wind shield. “The accused was abusive and tried to run away after the accident when we confronted him. It was clear that he was drunk. When he abused me, the locals who gathered there got agitated which led to the SUV getting vandalised,” said Liyakat Quazi, the victim’s nephew. “We want the police to probe the case thoroughly and secure the strictest punishment for the accused.”
In the case of 80-year-old Kamla Jagannath Mudaliar, it took some time for police to identify the driver of the vehicle that had hit her as he had fled from the spot immediately. Passersby called the police who then took her to hospital.
“Initially, the Tilak Nagar police registered a case against unknown driver but after checking the CCTV footage, police managed to identify the vehicle involved in the accident and arrested the driver,” said senior inspector Dattatray Patil of the Tilak Nagar police station.
The accused driver is Shailendra Kumar Surendra Shah, a resident of Mankhurd. The FIR was registered following a complaint lodged by the victim’s son Kumreshan Mudaliar, 56, who lives in Kamrajnagar, Ghatkopar East with his wife and two sons. The deceased used to live with them.
She was engaged in cleaning work at the Murgan Temple in Chhedanagar Colony in Chembur for the past 10 years. On the fateful day too, she left home for the temple punctually at 6 am, never to return. She was mowed down by a speeding crane before she could reach her destination.
The temple priest called the family around 9 am to enquire why she had not reached. The worried family started searching for her and made frantic rounds of police stations and hospitals, finally getting the tragic news that she had passed away and that her body was lying in a morgue at a hospital, at the Tilak Nagar police station.
They collected her body from the Rajawadi Hospital morgue and brought her home, for one last time.