This Article is From Oct 15, 2014

Chennai Taxi Mows Down Family of Ragpickers, Drunk Driver was on Joyride With Friends

Chennai Taxi Mows Down Family of Ragpickers, Drunk Driver was on Joyride With Friends

The taxi driver and his two friends were arrested later.

Chennai: Drink-driving wiped out an entire family in Chennai on Monday. The victims - a man and two women - were ragpickers sleeping on a pavement in the city's Velacherry area, an IT hub.

The vehicle was a taxi contracted by a local call centre. The driver, off duty, had been out on a joy ride with two friends. All three were drunk.

The men were arrested by Monday evening. Investigators said it was a clear case of drink-driving and over-speeding.

The driver had told police that he had lost control of the car when he swerved to avoid hitting a cow. "But the car hit the cow, which died," said a police officer. "And it halted only after running over the three people sleeping on the pavement 30 metres away."

One of the two women, Aishwarya, a 28-year-old, was pregnant. Her husband had died too. Their child, a one year-old, was saved since he was sleeping on a cart. Police are yet to establish the identity of the other woman.

Hussein, a pavement dweller, who was nearby and had a close shave, said, "The car was out of control and over-speeding. We all lived like a family helping each other. The child is now an orphan".

Tamil Nadu has a poor road safety record. Over the last two years, nearly 32,000 people died in road accidents across the state. Around 1900 of them - six percent - were victims of drink-driving.
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