Delhi BMW crash: Finance Ministry Official Navjot Singh Killed, Woman Driver In Custody

A senior finance ministry official was killed and his wife hospitalised after their motorcycle was struck by a BMW on the Ring Road near the Delhi Cantonment Metro station on Sunday.

The deceased was Deputy Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Navjot Singh, 52, a resident of Hari Nagar. His wife, Sandeep Kaur, sustained serious head and leg injuries, including a fractured femur; the couple had been returning from Bangla Sahib Gurdwara, PTI reported.

According to the FIR lodged in the case, the collision occurred at about 1:30 pm near Metro Pillar No. 67 on the Ring Road towards Naraina. The FIR records that a blue BMW, driven by a woman with a male passenger, came from behind at speed and hit the motorcycle, causing multiple fractures to Mr Singh’s head, mouth and legs. Mrs Kaur told police she had repeatedly pleaded with the couple to take them to the nearest hospital but they instead directed the van driver to a facility in GTB Nagar, reported PTI.

The woman accused of driving the BMW has been identified as Gagan Preet Kaur. The couple, from Gurugram, were admitted to hospital after the crash and later discharged; the woman was taken into custody on Monday after her discharge, police said. The accused couple are in the business of manufacturing leather products, PTI reported.

Van driver Mohammad Gulfam, who said he stopped and rushed all four injured people from the Dhaula Kuan site to a hospital in Azadpur, told PTI that he acted on the request of the occupants of the BMW. “I didn’t wait for an ambulance. With the help of some people, I took them all to a hospital in Azadpur. After 20 to 25 minutes, the doctor declared Navjot Singh dead,” PTI reported. Gulfam also told that many bystanders filmed the scene but did not help.

Mr Singh’s son said that his parents had stopped at Karnataka Bhawan for food before travelling via Dhaula Kuan. He alleged the injured were taken nearly 22 kilometres from the accident site instead of to a closer hospital and said his mother was left in a hospital lobby despite her condition while the BMW driver’s husband, who suffered minor injuries, was admitted immediately. “Because of this negligence and delay, my father was declared dead, and my mother kept screaming in pain,” he told PTI. The family later shifted Mrs Kaur to Venkateshwara Hospital for further treatment.

Police said a case of culpable homicide has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including sections 281 (rash driving), 125B (acts endangering life or personal safety of others), 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender). The BMW and the motorcycle have been seized and a forensic examination of the accident site carried out, PTI reported. Investigations are ongoing.

(With inputs from PTI)