One person died and two people were seriously injured after a drunk techie lost control of the car that he was driving and rammed into a shop near the deer national park located in Vanasthalipuram, at the outskirts of Hyderabad.
The incident took place on Wednesday when the accused, identified as Teja Reddy, was travelling with his friend towards Hayathangar in an SUV.
The police said that the car was travelling at such a high speed that it stopped only after it hit a cement block. They also said that an alcohol bottle was found in the car.
According to reports, Reddy's blood alcohol content (BAC) was 110 mg/100 ml. The permissible alcohol limit according to the city police is 30 mg/100 ml of blood, i.e. 30 micrograms/100 ml of blood. Anything above that, as recorded by a breath analyser, is considered drunken driving.
The deceased has been identified as 34-year-old Bhavya Singh. He and the three injured were migrants from Rajasthan and had moved to the city recently and sold blankets for a living.
One of the injured told a local media outlet, "The incident happened as we were closing the shop. We saw the vehicle coming towards us and before we knew it, he had crashed here. One died on the spot and two are very serious. Two of us received smaller injuries. After the accident, we found three of them at a distance of more than 20 feet away."
The accused has been taken into custody and the police said that a case had been registered against the driver under Sections 304A (Causing death by negligence) and 337 (Causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the IPC besides relevant sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.
Just this year alone, the traffic police have registered 14,440 cases of drunk driving across the city as of June 30, according to the department’s own data. The police have also arrested 2,503 people for drinking and driving during that same time period.