On 22 August, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, reportedly speeding at 230 kmph, rammed into an oil tank truck near Umri village in Haryana’s Nuh, killing the truck driver and his helper, and injuring the three occupants of the luxury car, including Vikas Malu.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)
“The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the Nuh Police is going through CCTV footage in a bid to ascertain who was behind the wheel that day,” a police official told The Quint on Tuesday, 29 August, regarding the Rolls-Royce car crash involving Kuber Group Director Vikas Malu that took place on the Delhi-Mumbai expressway last week.
On 22 August, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, reportedly speeding at 230 kmph, rammed into an oil tank truck near Umri village in Haryana’s Nuh, killing the truck driver and his helper, and injuring the three occupants of the luxury car, including Malu.
A purported video of the fatal crash – which has been circulated widely on social media – shows the luxury car speeding before it loses control and hits the oil tank truck in the middle lane. While Malu’s Rolls-Royce Phantom immediately caught in flames, the truck was overturned.
According to the FIR accessed by The Quint, the speeding luxury car allegedly hit the front tyre of the oil tank truck, which led to the truck driver losing control of the vehicle.
The FIR was registered based on the statement of Muneel Yadav, a resident of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, who was allegedly accompanying the oil tank truck in his car on the highway.
“I was accompanying my plant’s diesel tanker on the Delhi-Mumbai highway. It was around 11:30 am when a speeding Rolls-Royce Phantom came and rammed into the front tyre of the truck. As a result, the driver lost control and the truck overturned,” alleged Muneel, who works with Apco Infratech Pvt Ltd.
Although Muneel helped the truck driver Rampreet and his assistant Kuldeep out of the overturned vehicle and took them to a government medical college in Nalhar, the doctor stated that the two had succumbed to their injuries, he alleged.
While Rampreet was a resident of Ambedkar Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, Kuldeep hailed from Ayodhya. Gautam Kumar from Nuh was also travelling with the two others in the truck, Muneel claimed. However, the FIR has no mention of what happened to Kumar.
The Nuh Police had on Friday, 25 August, served a notice to Kuber Group‘s Malu to join the investigation of the accident after he was discharged from the Gurugram hospital, where he is currently undergoing treatment.
“Malu is to undergo surgery for elbow dislocation. He has also suffered injuries to his lungs. He is recovering at the hospital and is in no state to join the investigation at present. His driver Tasbir was driving the Rolls Royce and Malu was in the rear seat along with a woman passenger when the accident happened,” Thakur told the newspaper.
He added that his client's car was in a convoy with four other vehicles and that they were headed to Jaipur for a family function.
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