A hit-and-run case in Bengaluru went viral this week after the victim and their family flagged concerning details. Startup founder Snehil Saluja sparked discussion about road safety and accountability after highlighting an accident involving his sister and her friend. The matter has also sparked a heated rebuttal from the Bengaluru Police — which accused him of blaming the authorities “without even knowing the facts and truth”.
“A 1 crore earning techie’s life has no value in Bengaluru. And if you’re not earning that much? Your life has even less. My sister and her friend were driving home in my car. They stopped at a red light – the logical thing anyone does. A drunk driver in a mini-truck didn’t feel the need to stop. He slammed into them instead,” began the lengthy post from Saluja.
‘No arrests made, FIR and insurance denied’
He noted that no arrests had been made — despite everyone including the police likely aware that it was a case of drunken driving. He alleged that the authorities had told the duo that an FIR “didn’t make sense” if nobody had died — urging them to claim first-party insurance.
“The truck driver never showed up at the station. The owner never showed up. Nobody cared. My sister and her friend – both injured, both terrified – kept going back to the station, back to the accident site, explaining what happened over and over, just trying to get a report filed. I was in the US. All I could do was talk to them on calls, helpless,” he recounted.
Saluja claimed that one of the cops had eventually told the two victims that “nothing would happen” and explained that they were being “bribed” by the truck mafia. He also claimed that their insurance claim had been rejected over “misrepresentation of facts” despite their best efforts to highlight the incident.
Bengaluru Police denies allegations
The now-viral post has also sparked a war of words on X as Bengaluru Police insisted that Saluja was speaking “without understanding the subject”. A statement released by the Mahadevapura Traffic Police Station on social media contended that his sister had come to the police station two days after the accident (on December 16) to request acknowledgement of the incident for insurance purposes. The post claimed that she had denied the need for an FIR.
“In fact she was told to go for FIR. Perhaps after mutual consent between parties she has taken Rs 8,000 from the Bolero party and went from the police station. Today (February 2) she again came to the police station and claimed that acknowledgement would not be sufficient to claim insurance from the company and requested for FIR. Hence FIR copy is given to her. Kindly avoid blaming the authorities without even knowing the facts and truth (sic),” read the sharp rebuttal cited by the Bengaluru City Police.