Fish-seller couple Pradeep Nakhwa and Kaveri Nakhwa left early on Sunday to buy fish from Sassoon Dock. Their supplies bought and loaded on a scooter, they started the journey home. It was their last ride together.
The two were on the way to their Koliwada home when a speeding BMW hit their scooter from behind. Pradeep was thrown to the road, and Kaveri was dragged. Pradeep chased the speeding car for half-a-kilometre but could not find his wife. He went to the cops, and they informed him later that Kaveri’s body was found at Bandra-Worli sea-link.
“I ran behind the car for half a kilometre, but could not find the body. I was crying, screaming, but he did not stop. If he had stopped for a second, nothing would have happened,” Mr Nakhwa told NDTV. Next to him sat the couple’s daughter. She held a photograph of her mother.
“My child is crying for mother. Where do I get her?” Pradeep said, fighting back tears.
He accused the administration of shielding the accused Mihir Shah, the 24-year-old son of a Shiv Sena leader. The father Rajesh Shah, deputy leader of the Eknath Shinde-led party in Maharashtra’s Palghar district, had been arrested after the crash, but is now out on bail.
Mihir Shah, who was allegedly behind the wheel at the time of the accident, was arrested today.
Pradeep Nakhwa said the accused is being shielded because he is an “influential man’s son”. “I am a poor man. No one cares about the poor,” he said.
Mr Nakhwa also targeted state Home Minister and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis. “What is the home minister doing? Are you silent because the accused’s father is the Chief Minister’s man?”
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has termed the incident “unfortunate” and assured action. “Law will take its own course, everyone is equal before law,” he has said.
The case against Mihir Shah has been registered under the new criminal code Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sections relating to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, rash driving and destruction of evidence have been invoked.
