Mercedes hit-and-run: Logo, broken grill only evidence in hunt for killer car, driver

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Mar 07, 2017: A Mercedes-Benz logo and few pieces of a broken front grille of the high-end vehicle. That’s all police have in their hunt for the elusive driver of the vehicle which allegedly knocked down and killed a 17-year-old boy West Delhi’s Paschim Vihar on Sunday.

While the driver and the vehicle remained untraced, police admitted that the delay in arresting and conducting a medical test on the accused could rob them of potentially vital evidence.

Medical examination conducted 24 hours after an accident could not be able to confirm if the driver was under the influence of alcohol when the vehicle hit Atul Arora, a Class 12 student, who was returning home on a scooter.

Atul was the youngest of three children of a Delhi Development Agency (DDA) employee. He did not have a driving license and was not wearing a helmet.

“We have formed teams that will visit all authorised Mercedes workshops across Delhi-NCR to check if any vehicle with a broken logo and grill had come for repairs in the last 36 hours. Other drills are also being followed to track the car that was involved in the accident. We will catch the culprit soon,” said Rishi Pal, deputy commissioner of police (outer district).

Eye-witnesses also told police that there vehicle was silver colour and that there was another person in the vehicle besides the driver.

Police also quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the vehicle was being driven at speed in excess of 100kmph.

The impact of the collision flung Atul several feet in the air and the Honda Activa was dragged for about 40 metres. The luxury sedan also went on to hit an auto-rickshaw and a truck before the driver turned left and fled, eyewitnesses said.

Police said they were also keeping a watch on local workshops where similar cars are repaired. The police are also preparing a list of people who own Mercedes vehicles in Delhi and adjoining states.

If they fail to locate the car through workshops, they will start visiting Mercedes owners physically to find out if their cars were involved in any accident.

According to police, footage of some CCTV cameras in a market nearby did not help them much in identifying the vehicle.

They said the cameras did not have recordings of the accident but have only captured a few cars going in the same direction and towards the same spot where the accident took place some seconds later.

Atul, who was to turn 17 on April 18, lived with his parents and two sisters in GH-14 Block of Paschim Vihar. He was returning home after dropping a friend when the accident happened.

Sunday’s incident is the latest among several fatal accidents involving high-end vehicles in the national capital region (NCR).

In January, an overspeeding BMW had rammed into an Uber cab, killing its driver in South Delhi’s Munirka area.

The same month, four people including a woman techie were killed in Ghaziabad when a speeding Audi rammed head on into an autorickshaw they were travelling in.

In the Ghaziabad incident, police faced allegations of trying to protect the vehicle’s owner, a doctor. It also sparked public anger over alleged police inaction because of the car owner’s affluent background.