Learning to drive, Army man’s wife mows down two children in Mumbai

An army man and his wife were arrested after their car dashed into two children, killing them on spot at Cuffe Parade on Sunday. The man was teaching his wife how to drive.

The boys, aged 12 and 7 years, were on their bicycles and were crossing the road when the car came and hit them. The woman had panicked upon the two coming on the way of the vehicle. Both the husband and wife have been booked for rash and negligent driving.

According to the police, the incident took place on Sunday at around 2.30 pm when the army man was teaching his wife how to drive. The boys, who were riding a bicycle, were crossing the road when the car was on them. The woman, a new learner, pressed the accelerator instead of the brake and collided with the two boys.

The police said that the driver Sangeeta Santoshkumar Rai (34) and her husband Santoshkumar Rai (36), a lance naik with the Army, rushed the boys to the hospital with the help of locals. Doctors at INS Ashwini hospital declared them dead.

An officer from the Cuffe Parade police station, who did not wish to be named, said, “Sangeeta increased the speed, due to which the younger one of the boys, Abhay Dhyani, came under the car. The older one, Akshansh, was dragged on with the car for a while, until the driver crashed against a tree. The children were brothers.”

The boys were sons of Ravindraprasad Dhyani, another army man, posted in Assam. Both the deceased and the accused’s family are residents of Suvidha Complex at Navi Nagar in Cuffe Parade.

The complainant and eyewitness, Vishwanath Jadhav, also a Lance Naik with the army, in his statement to the police, said, “I was riding my bike past the spot and suddenly heard a colossal crash, only to find that the two kids had been hit by a car. I reached the spot and took one of the boys to the hospital along with the accused. I came to know later that the man was teaching his man how to drive.”

The accused have been booked under sections 279 (rash driving or riding in a public place), 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and were bailed out for a bail bond of Rs15,000 each, after they were produced in court on Monday.

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