Mumbai: 16-month-old, her mom die after cement mixer hits bike on ‘pockmarked’ Western Express Highway – Times of India

MUMBAI: A 16-month-old toddler and her mother were killed, while her father suffered injuries after a cement mixer rammed into their motorcycle at Goregaon East on Saturday. Police said the south-bound stretch of the Western Express Highway, where the crash occurred, was pockmarked which could have been a contributory factor for the crash. The cement mixer driver was arrested and subsequently released on bail.
Vile Parle residents Abdul Khalid Shaikh, 26, his wife, Nilofer, 25, and their daughter, Zainab, had set out for a family event with their relatives on Saturday. Shaikh works as a madarsa teacher. “My nephew, Shifanuddin Sayyad, had come down from Hyderabad for a visit. We made plans to meet my sister’s family at Kandivali for dinner, with my nephew and my mother accompanying us,” Shaikh said in his statement to the police.
After dinner, the group started to head back home to Vile Parle. Shaikh was riding a motorcycle with his wife and child seated pillion. Sayyad and Shaikh’s mother were on another two-wheeler. At 11pm, Shaikh was on the flyover opposite Oberoi mall when a heavy vehicle rammed into his motorcycle from the rear. “I lost control of my vehicle and all three of us landed on the road. My right leg was trapped beneath my motorcycle and it took me some time to free himself. By then, the cement mixer had crushed my wife and child. They were bleeding profusely and had suffered head injuries,” Shaikh said in the statement.
He waved to Sayyad who was coming up and gestured at him to stop the cement mixer. Sayyad ran after the mixer and sought help from other motorists on the stretch. They managed to bring the cement mixer to a halt and called the police. A doctor was summoned to the site and he pronounced Nilofer and Zainab dead. The mixer driver, Sudarshan Saroj, 51, was taken to the Kurar police station where he was booked under section 304 (A) of the IPC. Shaikh had to be rushed to the Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital in Kandivali as his arms and legs were hurt.
“Saroj has been released on bail. We have sent his blood samples to the forensic lab to establish if he was drinking. The stretch where the crash occurred is uneven and covered with pits. We will probe the sequence of events that led to the crash,” said senior inspector Satish Gadhve, Kurar police.
This is the second crash involving the death of a child in Goregaon East in two months. In December 2020, five-month-old Arfan Pathan was killed after a drunk motorist rammed into a motorcycle on which the infant and his parents were commuting. The motorist was also driving in the wrong direction.