Several people sleeping on the pavement outside their homes in Ahmedabad’s Behrampur area were run over by a speeding car driven by a 14-year-old on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday.
A pregnant Rehana Bano and a 40-year-old labourer Salim Rashidbhai lost their lives. Four others, including two children, were hospitalised with severe injuries.
“The boy was out for a midnight snack in his uncle’s car,” M.F. Sheikh, Inspector at the Danilimda police station, told The-Hindu . He was apparently over-speeding and lost control. He would be produced before a juvenile court on Thursday, he said.
Three-year-old Simran — the youngest of the victims — suffered a dislocated shoulder and is set to undergo surgery. Lying on the hospital bed with her arm in a sling, she has been crying for her mother Rehana Bano. Her 10-year-old brother Faizan is in another ward with a fractured leg. He has still not been told that his mother is dead.
Dragged under wheels“His car passed by my bed and I screamed at him. The next thing I saw was two people being dragged under the wheels,” Raisa Haroon, an eye-witness, whose brother Yasin was among the injured, told TheHindu .
A trail of broken beds and cycles bore testimony to the horror that unfolded in the narrow lane. The area is an impoverished quarter of 50 hutments, housing small-time labourers. Most of the residents were sleeping outside due to hot weather.
