A five-year-old girl who was on her way to school with her mother died after a speeding lorry knocked down their bicycle at the CTH Road-Thirumangalam Road junction in Villivakkam on Saturday morning.
Her mother survived the accident with minor injuries.
According to the police, the victim, Saraswathi, was an LKG student at a private school in Villivakkam and the only daughter of couple Chandra, a homemaker, and Shankar, a lorry driver, who have two sons.
The accident took place around 8.20 a.m. when Chandra (27), a resident of Annai Sathya Nagar 1 Street, was riding her bicycle to drop Saraswathi at her school. They were on the main road near the Nadhamuni cinema hall when the lorry hit the bicycle.
“Chandra tried to cross the road on the bicycle with her girl seated pillion, when the lorry laden with concrete mixer knocked down the cycle. Saraswathi and the bicycle came under the wheels of the lorry while Chandra, in the impact, was thrown away,” said an officer of the Thirumangalam traffic investigation police.
The unidentified driver of the lorry abandoned the vehicle immediately and fled.
Motorists and bystanders on the road rushed to help Chandra, who was taken to a nearby hospital.
Traffic police personnel reached the spot and sent the child’s body for post-mortem after carrying out a preliminary probe. The Thirumangalam traffic police have registered a case and launched a hunt for the driver.
The lorry was seized and the police have initiated a check on the registration details.
