A 50-year-old man was killed and 19 others, most of them government employees, sustained injuries when a mini bus they were travelling in met with an accident near Jangpura metro station on Friday morning.
As many as 25 passengers were aboard when the front wheels of the bus came off.
Some of those injured said the bus ferried school children in another shift but the police refuted these claims. The vehicle owner, who was driving at the time of the accident, has been arrested for causing death due to negligence and rash driving, said the police.
Sunita Toppo, one of the injured, said a group of government employees living in South Delhi had hired the bus owned by one Baljeet for travelling between their homes and offices. The bus would originate from Pushp Vihar and pick passengers from various other points on its way to offices in South and New Delhi.
“The bus was on its routine trip to the offices. When it reached near the Defence Colony flyover, I saw the front right wheel coming off. The driver applied brakes but as the vehicle was in motion, it started tilting before hitting a crash barrier and turned sideways. Due to the crash, the other wheel also came out,” said Ms. Toppo, who was headed for the University Grants Commission office in Mandi House.
The windows and windscreen were smashed and the horizontal bar used to protect passengers came out. This proved fatal for one of the passengers, Dharmendra Arora. Mr. Arora, who was seated on the last seat of the bus, was thrown out and came under the bus. Eyewitnesses recalled how his head was badly crushed.
The deceased was an office superintendent with the Indian Railways and posted at Baroda House.
The other passengers sustained injuries and were taken to three different hospitals, most of them to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The police said none of the injured was critical. The police will now consult mechanical experts to find out whether the wheel came off because of poor maintenance, overloading or any other factor.
