Chennai: A 32-year-old auto driver was killed and at least five others suffered injuries after a speeding sedan driven by an inebriated college student rammed into parked auto rickshaws on Cathedral road during the early hours of Sunday. Five college students were travelling in the car.
Of them, two, including the driver, K. Naveeth Ahmed, were drunk, police said.
The incident happened around 1.30 am, police said. The quintet- K. Naveeth Ahmed (20), R. Vishal Rajkumar, 19, N. Hari Krishnan, 21, P. Vinoth, 20 and R. Kiran Kumar (20) had checked into a hotel in MRC Nagar.
After a few drinks they set out to the beach when the accident happened, police investigations revealed.
Except for Kiran Kumar, who is a 1st year BBA student at MGR University, the others are students of Loyola College.
Naveeth lost control of the car — a Chevrolet Cruze (TN 18 AR 9999) — and rammed into the auto rickshaws before coming to a halt on hitting an electric junction box.
A passerby, who witnessed the incident, alerted the police and helped move the injured auto drivers to a hospital where one of them, Rajesh, was declared brought dead.
The other auto drivers - Babu (42), Mohan (41), Perumal (38), Balan (40) and Pandavan (38) - were treated for their injuries. All the auto drivers are from Arakkon am, 80 km from the City and used to sleep in the vehicle overnight after their duty hours.
Personnel from the Adyar Traffic Investigation wing detained the occupants of the car and sent them to a hospital for medical tests and for treatment of their injuries. City police said that the student who drove the car, Naveeth would be booked under section 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) of IPC and drunk driving among other sections. Cases would be booked against the other four students travelling in the car too, police said.
Bereaved family members of the deceased auto driver expressed anguish at the Government Royapettah Hospital. “He would usually sleep at Purasawalkam. Only for the past few days, he parked his vehicle on Cathedral road and this happened”, Sampath, father-in-law of the deceased auto driver, said.
Sunday's accident took place on the same stretch on which an auto driver was killed in September last year when a Porsche car driven by professional racer Vikas Anand, driving under the influence, rammed into the vehicles.
