The accident on ISKCON flyover took just 0.5 seconds to snuff out nine lives on the midnight of July 20. This has come out in a report by Jaguar Land Rover in England. The carmaker in its report also said the vehicle was moving at 137 kmph at the time of the accident. This comes a day after the Forensic Science Laboratory that accused Tathya Patel, 19, was driving the car at 141.27 kmph.
Tathya, a resident of Gota in Ahmedabad, rammed his speeding Jaguar into a crowd gathered at the site of another accident on the flyover that had taken place a while ago. An earlier re-construction of the accident by the police had revealed that Tathya was speeding and had not applied the brakes. Tathya told the police that his friends were tickling him while he was driving. He claimed the reckless revelry combined with low visibility blinded him to the presence of the crowd in front.
Additional CP (traffic) NN Chaudhary said. “According to a report from the head engineer of the company in London, Tathya did not apply brakes at the time of the accident. The car’s anti-lock brake system later activated, causing it to stop after it had travelled 120 feet.”
A senior traffic police officer said the charge sheet for the case was likely to be filed before Friday. “We will seek the court’s permission to add the charge of attempted culpable homicide under IPC Section 308,” said the officer.
Earlier, the SG-2 division traffic police had registered a complaint of culpable homicide not amounting to murder along with charges of rash driving against Tathya and criminal intimidation against his father Pragnesh.
Tathya is a habitual offender when it comes to doing illegal speeds. As police scoured the CCTV footages, it was found he had violated stipulated speed rules at least 25 times earlier and ironically, had never been fined for the offence. Not only this, he jumped red light five times a month and went scot-free. He was also involved in several minor accidents earlier, yet the incidents were brushed under the carpet.
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