At around 6:30 pm on March 10, 2019, Upendra Mishra – a driver by profession – was on the Akshardham flyover when his car caught fire. While the car was still ablaze, he drove to the side of the flyover to avoid hitting other people on the road and then jumped out of the car along with his daughter. While the father-daughter duo escaped, his 34-year-old wife and two daughters perished in the tragic incident.
“The car’s rear portion had caught fire,” said Babloo Kumar, who works at a tent house close to the accident site. “In the time, he slowly moved towards the footpath to stop the car. More than half of it had been engulfed in the fire. The man jumped out and pulled out his daughter who was sitting next to him in the front. Other commuters passing by tried to unlock or break open the rear door but failed. We feared that the car may explode and maintained a safe distance.”
Fire officials said that the rear doors may have been locked. Mishra reportedly tried to break open the rear doors of the car to save his family. “People held him back else he too would have died in the fire. He was crying loud and was screaming for help. However, the heat was so much that none of us could even stand close to the vehicle,” said Karan Sarkar, another witness to the incident.
“The bodies were charred beyond recognition, they were burnt right through,” an official at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital, where the bodies were taken, said.
An auto driver who had also stopped to help the family said that the traffic cops had reached the spot and cleared the traffic.
Representational Image – AFP
“One carriageway on the flyover had to be blocked. The traffic was disrupted. Meanwhile, senior police officers also arrived at the spot along with fire tenders and ambulance. The firemen doused the fire. Police cordoned off the area and we were asked to keep away from the spot. Police called a crane which moves the gutted vehicle away and traffic was restored,” said Prashant Kashyap, the autorickshaw driver from Anand Vihar.
Police said that Mishra had planned a family outing on Sunday, Deputy Commissioner of Police (east) Jasmeet Singh said. Understandably, Mishra is in a state of shock. “We will ask him the sequence of event to find out the reason of fire in the car later,” Singh said.
An initial probe has indicated that the fire may have started in the CNG kit of the car. Mishra said he noticed a spark coming out of the bonnet and changed his lane to stop the car and check it. However, before he could do that, a blaze started from the rear and quickly engulfed the entire vehicle.
The family lives in Ghaziabad and had gone to Kalkaji temple for a weekend outing and on the way back the children insisted on going to Akshardham temple. “I took a U-turn and came on this road to show them the temple. It seems that death pulled us this side. I have lost my family,” a shell-shocked Mishra was heard telling the passersby gathered there.