A 15-year-old boy was brought before the Juvenile Justice Board in Bhiwandi and subsequently sent to an observation home in connection with a fatal accident. The boy was accused of causing the death of an auto-rickshaw driver and seriously injuring another after crashing into two parked rickshaws with a pickup vehicle he was driving in Thane.
The boy’s father, identified as Manoj Niranjan Biswal, the owner of the pickup vehicle, was produced in court and remanded to police custody.
The teenager, a tenth-standard student, lives with his parents in the Kasarvadavli area of Thane. He attends school in Thane and has his preliminary exams scheduled for next week. The boy had previously secured 88% in his ninth-standard exams. His father, who works as a driver delivering empty domestic cylinders, had reportedly allowed the boy to drive the vehicle in the past without informing his mother.
According to the investigation officer, the incident occurred in the early hours of Monday. The boy was studying around 2 AM when his father, noticing him awake, asked him to sleep as it was late. After his father went to bed, the boy took the keys to the pickup van, left the house quietly, and drove off.
The accident occurred at 2:35 AM on Ghodbunder Road in Thane when the boy lost control of the vehicle while driving towards Mumbai. The pickup truck struck two parked auto-rickshaws before plunging into a pit dug for metro construction work.
The deceased, identified as Jitendra Mohan Kamble (31) and Ganesh Vishwanath Waghmare (29), were residents of Thane. Both were rushed to a hospital, where Kamble was declared dead, and Waghmare is currently undergoing treatment.
Sunil Patil, a police inspector from Kasarvadavli Police Station, said, “During the investigation, it was learned that the boy had driven the pickup vehicle earlier without informing his parents.”
The tragic incident highlights the need for greater vigilance and adherence to traffic safety laws.
