A 19-year-old youth who was driving the SUV that hit and killed an infant on Thursday, March 17, in Hyderabad has been arrested by the Jubilee Hills police. The accident took place on the city’s Jubilee Hills Road Number 45, when three women selling balloons were crossing the road with two children. The accident had garnered attention as the vehicle had a Telangana Legislative Assembly sticker in the name of Mohammed Shakil Aamir, the MLA from Bodhan who belongs to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS).
The driver has been identified as Syed Afnan Ahmed of Mehdipatnam, a student of the Hyderabad School of Business. The Jubilee Hills police have issued a notice under section 41 of The Criminal Code of Procedure (CrPC) (police may arrest without warrant) and an FIR has been registered against Syed under sections 337 (Causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 304A (Causing death by negligence). The police told TNM that other relevant sections under the IPC and the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 will be added after the investigation is completed.
On March 17, five persons, including the deceased infant, were hit by the SUV. According to the police, the SUV rammed into the three street vendors, migrants from Maharashtra, when the two infants who were in their mothers’ laps fell down. Later, one of them was declared dead at the nearby Apollo hospital. The three women and a one-year-old child who were also injured in the accident are undergoing treatment at a hospital.
According to eyewitnesses, the driver of the car abandoned the vehicle and fled from the spot immediately after the accident. The vehicle had a Temporary Registration (TR) number and belongs to Urban Infra and Transports owned by Mirza Hansan Ali Bagh.
When asked about the vehicle bearing the TRS MLA’s sticker, Jubilee Hills Station House Officer (SHO) Rajashekar Reddy said, “While the car has his sticker, it does not belong to him.”
The TRS MLA, who is reportedly in Dubai right now, said he had given a sticker to a friend but did not know if it was the same one found on the vehicle involved in the accident.