Chennai: A speeding Audi car, driven by a drunken businessman on the wrong side into the approaching traffic in a one-way section on Anna Salai, mowed down a two-wheeler rider to a gory death. The accident, which took place in the small hours of Thursday, disrupted traffic for about 2 hours while the wreckage of the car and bike along with a truck, which was also dashed into, were moved to Anna Square traffic investigation wing. At around 4.10 am, Md Shafi, (31), and Md Farook, (39), both in leather business in Erode and who were in the city to take part in the Leather Fair underway at Chennai Trade Centre, left in the Audi from a star hotel on Binny Road.
Instead of taking Patullos Road off Anna Salai to reach Gemini, the driver went on Anna Salai in the wrong direction. The car rammed the bike head-on at very high speed and the rider Kevin Raj was tossed off the vehicle and landed on iron rods supporting a post in the Metro Rail works part of the road and was killed instantaneously. The car came to a halt after it hit a truck laden with rubber from Guindy and heading towards Walltax road. The truck overturned in the impact. Since the airbags opened in the Audi, the occupants were trapped.
The truck driver Sathish from Kanniyakumari told the media that he saw the speeding car hit the two-wheeler and the rider flung off. “I tried to veer away from the vehicle. However, the car hit my truck which overturned in the impact”, he said. Shafi and Farook were bailed out of the car and were subjected to medical examination to establish the alcohol level while the body was moved to Government Royapettah Hospital for post-mortem.
Kevin Raj, who was working in a star hotel in Guindy, was heading home when the accident occurred. His father Irudayaraj works as a lab assistant in Royapuram in a clinic for diabetes. The duo was booked under section 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC, and was arrested.
