The Rolls-Royce that crashed with a fuel tanker near Delhi was part of a 14-car convoy
The Rolls-Royce, which collided with a fuel tanker on the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway in Nuh near Delhi on Tuesday, was part of a 14-car convoy, CCTV footage from the Hilalpur toll plaza on the expressway showed.
None of the 14 vehicles stopped to pay the toll tax, the footage, from around 11:15 am on August 22, showed.
The 14 cars included two Toyota Fortuner, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Mercedes GL SUV, a BMW 6 Series, a BMW 5 Series, two ISUZU V Cross, two Mercedes GLs, a Hyundai Creta, a Ford Endeavour, and a Toyota Hilux.
The accident, which killed two people in the tanker and injured those travelling in the uber-luxurious Rolls-Royce, happened just 28 km from this toll plaza 15 minutes after the convoy passed through.
In a big revelation on Friday, a senior police official confirmed that industrialist and Kuber Group director Vikas Malu was among the three occupants of the Rolls-Royce that smashed into a petrol tanker at an extremely high speed. Mr Malu is undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Gurugram.
Two of the three people in the tanker - the driver and his assistant - were killed when the Rolls-Royce Phantom rammed it on the New Delhi-Mumbai expressway in Nuh. Barring the driver, all of the car's occupants have been hospitalised.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV, Nuh Superintendent of Police Narendra Bijaraniya said that the entire stretch of the expressway is lined with CCTV cameras and that the police are scanning the footage. The truck, he said, took a U-turn on the highway and the Phantom was travelling at a very high speed when the two collided.
NDTV tracked down the third occupant of the tanker, Gautam, who is recovering from his injuries at his house in Haryana's Ujina. Gautam, who was sitting next to the driver and the assistant, said the truck was taking a U-turn when it was rammed by the Rolls-Royce. Struggling to speak because of his injuries, he said the Phantom's speed was at least 190 km/hr and the truck overturned after being hit, claiming that the driver of the car was at fault.
Visuals from the crash site showed little left of the Phantom priced at over Rs 10 crore. The front of the car was completely mangled, the engine was ablaze and the doors were opened by impact. The truck's condition was even worse, with just a heap of metal left after the blaze engulfed it.
An FIR has been registered and an investigation is underway, Mr Bijaraniya said.