A 45-year-old hospital director died after his motorcycle veered off an isolated area on the Faridabad-Gautam Buddh Nagar road that suddenly gave way to a deep, unmarked ditch late on Sunday evening, police said.
Police said the victim, Atul Kumar Joshi, survived the accident that shattered his helmet and pulled his body into a sitting position on the dirt wall of the ditch, but was unable to call for help. Local villagers saw him and the motorcycle on Monday morning.
Police said he was traveling from his residence in Faridabad to Noida on Sunday evening and apparently took the road leading to the Manjawali Bridge built over the Yamuna river in Faridabad. The online map is expected to have given this route as an option.
The road project, which seeks to connect Faridabad and Noida via Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, on the Haryana side, has been completed. But only about 50 meters after crossing the state border, the road suddenly disappears and leads to open fields filled with deep ditches.
Joshi may not have been able to see in time that there was no path ahead, said Inspector Ranbir Singh, the officer of Tejgaon police station in Faridabad.
“Villagers saw the mangled motorcycle and Joshi in the ditch and informed Tejgaon police station in Faridabad on Monday morning,” Ranbir said.
Faridabad police soon realized that Joshi was 45-50 meters away from the Haryana border. UP Police has been alerted to complete formalities.
Manoj Singh, director of operations at Dhankur police station in Gautam Buddha Nagar, said Joshi appeared to be alive after the incident.
He added: “His helmet was shattered, indicating that he had suffered a head injury. He even got up to sit inside the trench, but due to internal injuries, bleeding and the lack of timely medical care in the isolated place, he died.”
His body was handed over to the family after an autopsy, Danakaur SHO said.
An investigation was conducted under Section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita Act on the family’s complaint. They did not allege a crime.
The police officer said they would try to ascertain why Joshi took this route and whether he had used an online map.
The road project was completed on the Haryana side several years ago but no construction work was undertaken in Uttar Pradesh, the Faridabad district administration official said.
“The place where the road ends at the border is less than three kilometers from the Eastern Peripheral Expressway and the Yamuna Expressway. The road project aims to provide better connectivity between the two countries,” he said.
