40-year-old Delhi man thrown out of SUV in 50-foot drop near Gurugram, dies

A 40-year-old man died after being ejected from his car as it plunged 50 feet into a ditch while driving down a hilly road in Sohna early Tuesday, police said. The deceased was identified as Pankaj Kumar, a resident of Shakarpur in Delhi and a lawyer who practised at the Meerut Civil Court.

Investigators said Kumar went to Tauru, Nuh, to attend a wedding on Monday night. On his way back, around 3-4am on Tuesday, he skidded off the road while traversing a hairpin bend at Thakurwara village, located amid the Aravalli hills. His grey MG Hector flipped multiple times and its front-end was badly mangled, police said.

“Kumar was probably not wearing the seat belt. When the car flipped, he was ejected and landed on a wall constructed from rock causing severe head injury. Kumar might have survived if he had worn the seat-belt as the cabin was largely intact,” inspector Ajaybir Singh, station house officer of City Sohna police station, said.

Police said a passerby spotted the rear red lights of the car in the ditch and alerted the police around 4am. However, personnel could not find anyone in the car. “They continued the search and after about 10 minutes, found a man lying in a pool of blood on a rock about 10-15 feet away from the car,” the SHO said.

They stretchered him and took him to the subdivisional hospital in Sohna, where he was declared dead. Kumar sustained a severe head injury, which might have resulted in his death within a few minutes, investigators said.

SHO Singh said that emergency response personnel contacted Kumar’s family through his phone, which was recovered from his car. “Kumar probably dozed off and the car plunged into the ditch from the hairpin bend. The car’s rear was intact and even the glass had not shattered, ruling out the possibility of another vehicle ramming it,” he said.

On a complaint from Kumar’s brother Shekhar Kumar, an inquiry under Section 194 of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita was initiated. The boy was handed over to the family on Tuesday evening.