Faridabad SUV drowning: Driver ignored warning, barricades, claim cops

Passersby attempted to help the duo stuck in the car and after a lot of efforts, managed to get them out but Viraj died on the spot

Faridabad: The driver of a car that got stuck in the flooded Old Faridabad Railway underpass leading to the death of its two occupants had disregarded the barricades put up to prevent people from going to the inundated area, a police official has claimed.

Viraj (26), a cashier at a private bank branch here, and Punyashray Sharma (48), the manager, were returning home in Greater Faridabad from Gurugram on Friday night when their sports utility vehicle (SUV) got stuck in the flooded underpass around 11:50 pm, police said.

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The XUV 700 entered the underpass ignoring all warnings and water gushed into the vehicle, they said. The passersby attempted to help the duo stuck in the car and after a lot of efforts, managed to get them out but Viraj died on the spot, a police official said, adding Sharma was taken to the Badshah Khan Civil Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

According to police, rains throughout Friday inundated the underpass and cars were warned against entering it. “A barricade was put up at the entrance of the underpass since it was waterlogged. The occupants of the SUV were told by police officers to take a different route,” police sub-inspector Rajesh Kumar said.

“But they removed the barricade and attempted to go through the underpass. The car’s doors got locked as it got stuck in the water and the duo died by drowning,” he said. A colleague of the two deceased said Viraj and Sharma left the bank at night. “Viraj was driving. He was new in Delhi-NCR and maybe he didn’t know that the route was waterlogged,” Arjun Singh, the colleague said.

Inspector Samer Singh, the SHO of the NIT Faridabad police station, said the families of the deceased have been informed about the incident and the bodies will be handed over to their kin after post-mortem.