‘Teen who drove car into Delhi market should be tried as an adult’: Cops to write to juvenile board

A senior police officer said his parents are evading the investigation and efforts are on to trace them. An officer said, “We have found that the boy’s father, an MCD staffer, is currently in Dadri; he had gone there a few days before the incident after his mother fell sick. The boy’s mother is not in Delhi and is yet to join the probe… police teams have been deployed to trace them.”

The officer added that once the parents join the probe, they will be questioned on how the boy managed to take the car.

The father had rented the vehicle to a driver with a cab aggregator. The driver, who was summoned in the case, told police he was out of town at the time.

“Three days before the incident took place, the driver handed over the keys to the owner before he went on holiday… Sensing an opportunity, the boy took the vehicle out for a joyride along with his friend. For now, we will move an application in the JJB to try the driver as an adult given the nature of the offence and the circumstances surrounding the incident,” said the officer.

Police said that during questioning, the boy admitted he became “nervous” after a crowd surrounded his vehicle and started vandalising it. “So he kept driving and eventually ended up hitting several persons”.

Police have lodged a case under the IPC section of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against unknown persons.

CCTV footage of the incident shows the vehicle accelerating and hitting more shoppers and a vegetable vendor and eventually crashing into a bangle shop and a cloth shop. After halting at the spot for a few seconds, it reverses and speeds away. Passersby later stopped the car, beat up the boy, and vandalised the vehicle.