A 51-year-old man and his 12-year-old daughter died after a Chennai Corporation lorry hit their two-wheeler on Sardar Patel Road on Wednesday morning.
The man’s 10-year-old son has been admitted to a private hospital with head injuries. The police have arrested the lorry driver.
The victim, T. Tirupathi Rao, was on his way to drop his two children, Neeranjana and Rohit, at the Kendriya Vidyalaya school in the CLRI campus opposite IIT–Madras when the accident occurred around 8 a.m. Tirupathi Rao had passed the Saidapet Court and taken a left turn in front of Raj Bhavan to reach CLRI.
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While he died on the spot, his daughter died on the way to a hospital.
“A commuter on a bus saw the accident. He said the lorry hit the right handle bar of the two-wheeler and the three fell down. The lorry driver fled the scene,” said Swaminathan, a colleague of Tirupathi Rao who had come to Government Royapettah Hospital where the bodies were brought.
According to B. Natarajan, another colleague, Tirupathi Rao worked in CLRI in Adyar and was a resident of NGO Colony in Adambakkam. His wife, Dhanalakshmi (42), is a homemaker.
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Neeranjana was a class VII student and Rohit was studying in class V.
“Tirupathi Rao was punctual. He used to drop the children at their school by 8.10 a.m. and then come in for work,” said Natarajan.
Other colleagues said he usually wore a helmet while riding, but had failed to do so on Wednesday. “He was not a rash driver and made it a point to drop the children early to avoid a last-minute rush,” said Natarajan.
The children had been active in academics and sports. “Both of them were good students. They used to win science quizzes and exams held by CLRI,” said Swaminathan.
The Adyar traffic investigation police have registered a case.
“We arrested the driver Jayaprakash (57), the Chennai Corporation lorry driver. He is due for retirement in the next ten months,” said a traffic police inspector.