Delhi-Meerut Expressway Accident: BTech student killed by car reversing for 2km in Ghaziabad | Ghaziabad News

GHAZIABAD: A 21-year-old BTech student was mowed down by a car reversing on NH-9 on Sunday. The accident in Vijay Nagar comes barely a week after six members of a family died when their car was hit by a private bus that had travelled on the wrong side of the adjacent Delhi-Meerut Expressway for almost 8km.

Police have identified the youth as Krishnanshu Chaudhary, a resident of Assotech society in Crossings Republik.
Police said the car, which was headed for Meerut, was supposed to take the DME, but got on to NH-9 instead. By the time the driver realised the mistake, he had travelled for almost 2km.
“So, he started reversing the car. The youth, who was riding his scooter, crashed into the car at high speed. The driver fled after the accident,” said Anita Chauhan, the SHO of Vijay Nagar police station.
Krishnanshu was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.
Unlike DME, bikes are allowed to use NH-9. But vehicles can’t reverse on a particular carriageway as they are allowed to move in only one direction.
The police said they were trying to trace the driver and relying on footage from cameras installed on shops and houses along NH-9 as the highway doesn’t have any.
An FIR has been registered against the unknown driver under sections 279 (rash driving) and 304A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC. “A team has been formed to trace him. We are scanning whatever CCTV footage we have been able to procure so far,” said Chauhan.
Police sources said a letter had been sent to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in September last year, listing the importance of cameras on NH-9. They had also suggested spikes on the highway and DME to curtail wrong-side driving.
Three months later, NHAI officials had announced that 232 CCTV cameras would be installed not just on the highway but in underpasses too. The move, police had then said, would help them to not just issue challans but also check crime.
On Monday, NHAI manager Puneet Khanna said the authority did not have any policy to install cameras on the highway. “There is no such provision,” he told TOI.
The accidents on DME and NH-9 over the past few days have brought to fore the lack of enforcement of traffic rules on the speedways. It’s not just wrong-side driving that is a cause for concern. Bikes and auto-rickshaws, which are banned on the DME, can also be seen using the speedway at will.
On July 11, six members of a family died and two were injured after a private bus being driven on the wrong side of DME for almost 8km crashed into their car. CCTV footage circulated on social media showed the bus trying to swerve to the right to avoid a collision, but ending up crashing into the TUV because the car, too, steered to its left.
Two days later, a government car drove on the wrong side without being stopped for over 2km on the DME. The driver was fined Rs 2,000 after a video of the car was circulated on social media.
Khanna said they were working with the police to chalk out a mechanism to curtail instances of wrong-side driving on DME and NH-9.
“It’s not practical to deploy traffic marshals at the entry and exit points because vehicles travel at high speed. Last year, we had deployed a few traffic marshals to stop vehicles from moving on the wrong side. But we had to withdraw the decision after two cops were killed in accidents,” he added.
Ghaziabad police commissioner Ajay Kumar Mishra said 38 cops were deployed on NH-9 to keep an eye on vehicles. “We are also preparing a report on wrong-side driving and the reasons behind it. We will send it to NHAI,” he added.