BMW car crash: A Finance Ministry official and his wife were returning from Gurdwara Bangla Sahib on Sunday when a BMW rammed into a motorcycle from behind on Ring Road. Navjot Singh, Deputy Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, was declared dead upon arrival at the hospital. His wife and two others injured in the crash are currently undergoing treatment.
An FIR has also been registered in the matter, and an investigation into the case is underway. The police have yet to record the statements of the couple who were in the BMW.
What has really happened?
1- Singh, a resident of Hari Nagar, was riding the bike while his wife was seated pillion when the accident occurred near metro pillar number 67 on the Dhaula Kuan-Delhi Cantt metro stretch.
2- Soon after the incident, there was a traffic jam, and people started dialling the police to help clear the congestion.
3- When they reached, they found the BMW lying sideways on the road and the motorcycle parked by the divider. The damaged vehicles were removed to restore the traffic flow in the area.
4- Eyewitnesses told police that a woman, identified as Gaganpreet, was driving the car at the time of the incident. They added that the front portion of the car was badly damaged, and the airbags had deployed due to the impact.
4- The couple in the BMW reportedly rushed the injured bureaucrat and his wife to a family-owned hospital, Nuelife Hospital in GTB Nagar, approximately 20 kilometres from the crash site.
5- Doctors declared 52-year-old Singh dead, while his 50-year-old wife was admitted and is still receiving treatment. She suffered a head injury.
‘My father was declared dead because…’
6- Singh’s son, Navnoor, shared that his parents had visited Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and stopped at Karnataka Bhawan for food before heading toward Hari Nagar via Dhaula Kuan.
“They were on their way to Hari Nagar via Dhaula Kuan when the incident happened. Instead of taking them to a nearby hospital, they were taken to a hospital nearly 22 km from the accident site. My mother suffered a head injury, even though she was wearing a helmet, and a fractured femur,” he told PTI.
7- Navnoor further accused the hospital of neglect, claiming that his mother was left sitting in the lobby, while Gaganpreet’s husband, a businessman, was treated immediately.
“Because of this negligence and delay, my father was declared dead, and my mother kept screaming in pain,” he added, before saying, “My mother, who is a teacher, is devastated, and so are we.”
8- He said that his mother, after regaining consciousness, asked the hospital to contact a family friend working at another hospital, who then informed Navnoor. She was later shifted to Venkateshwara Hospital for better treatment.
9- When Navnoor inquired about the driver, hospital staff initially refused to disclose any details. It was only after five hours that he came to know that they were in the same hospital.
11- Rishav Samrat, a friend of the bureaucrat, criticised the choice of hospital, saying that AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital were nearby, but the couple took the injured to a hospital very far away. “I later learned that the hospital in GTB Nagar was linked to the family of the woman driving the BMW.”
Police seize BMW, motorcycle
12- Police have since seized both the BMW and the motorcycle involved in the accident, and forensic experts have examined the accident site.
“The BMW and the motorcycle involved in the accident have been seized. The accident spot was examined by a crime team, and experts from the Forensic Science Laboratory were called in for assistance,” a senior police officer said.
13- The couple are still not in police custody, per reports, as they are also suffered minor injuries and are undergoing treatment.