Navale bridge accident: Truck driver, cleaner, vehicle owner from Rajasthan booked for ‘culpable homicide’

8 people were burned to death after a car caught fire when a truck collided with it and other vehicles in the Navale Bridge area on the Katraj Dehu Road Bypass of Pune-Bangalore Highway on Thursday.

Truck driver Rustam Rudar Khan, 35, and cleaner Mushtaq Hanif Khan, 31, died after their truck collided with a car and other vehicles in the Navale Bridge area. (Express Photo)

The Pune City police have booked the driver, cleaner, and owner of the speeding truck — all Rajasthan natives — on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, in connection with the Navale bridge road accident, in which eight people were burned to death and 13 others were injured on Thursday evening.

Truck driver Rustam Rudar Khan, 35, and cleaner Mushtaq Hanif Khan, 31, died after their truck collided with a car and other vehicles in the Navale Bridge area on the Katraj Dehu Road Bypass of Pune-Bangalore Highway.

The three, including the owner Tahir Nasir Khan, 45, were booked under sections 105, 281, 125 (a)(b), 324 (4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Sections 184, 119/177 of the Motor Vehicle Act, early on Friday.

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According to police officials, Rustam, who was heading from Satara to Mumbai via Katraj Dehu Road Bypass, lost control of the truck on the Navale Bridge slope, reportedly due to brake failure, hitting multiple vehicles, including a car, around 5.40 pm.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Sambhaji Kadam said the impact was such that a car caught fire after it got sandwiched between the truck and a container on the same route.

However, the police have said they are investigating to determine the exact cause of the accident.

Among those who died in the accident were five people from three different families, who had gone for a trip to Narayanpur for a temple visit in a car. These five victims include a car driver Dhananjay Koli, 30, resident of Chikhali, Swati Santosh Navalkar, 37, of Dhayari Phata, her mother Shanta Dattatraya Dabhade, 54, father Dattatraya Chandrakant Dabhade, 58, and three-year-old Mokshita Hemkumar Reddy, a resident of Chikhali.

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According to Devendra Potphode, chief of the Pune Fire Brigade, the truck that went out of control was heavily laden with iron pieces and rods.

Potphode said the car that was gutted may have had a CNG kit. “After the car caught fire, the CNG might have exploded,” he said.

Navale Bridge in the Narhe area of Pune and an adjacent location known as Selfie Point are “black spots” on the list of the Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD) launched by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India. According to norms, a stretch of 500 metres of a road, on which five or more accidents with fatalities or grievous injuries have taken place in three years, is referred to as a “black spot”. Multiple accidents have been reported in the Navale Bridge area over the last few years.

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