Denying the charges on social media that an arch put up on Avanashi Road for the MGR Centenary fete claimed the life of an NRI techie on Saturday, the Coimbatore City police on Monday claimed they had surveillance camera visuals of a lorry that ran over the youth.
The police also said that two witnesses, a security guard of a private enterprise and another person, had reached the accident spot a few seconds after the incident.
A senior official of the City police on Monday said that the CCTV visual from a private establishment showed the lorry, bearing registration number TN 38 AV 3953, coming in the wrong direction on the one-way lane and taking a left turn at the junction to take the Tidel Park Road to Vilankurichi. The surveillance camera had also captured the visual of the deceased, K. Ragupathy (32), passing the junction. But the camera did not cover the accident spot, shortly after CMC junction towards Hope College.
According to the official, two persons had reached the accident spot seconds after the accident that took place at 2.40 a.m. on Saturday. One of them, the security guard, heard a loud noise and he rushed to the spot. The camera visuals showed him running towards the accident spot, he said.
The second witness is seen in the visuals running to towards accident spot as the lorry takes the left turn, said the official, adding that the accident occurred due to the negligence of the lorry driver. Meanwhile, the official said that the presence of the wooden arch, which occupied nearly one fourth of the width of the road, could have forced Ragupathy to ride his motorcycle towards the centre of the road.
The driver of the lorry, M. Mohan (31) of Paramakkudi, who was arrested on Saturday night is in judicial custody till December 12. The lorry belonged to a private firm named UPL and was being operated on contract basis for Coimbatore Integrated Waste Management Company Private Limited.
