Mumbai, February 2, 2010 : Investigators on Monday completely discounted claims by 27-year-old beautician Nooriya Haveliwala’s parents that their daughter is innocent and it was a tyre burst or something that led to her losing control of the vehicle. 

Police and RTO officials examined Nooriya’s Honda CR-V after claims by her father about tyre burst. All tyres are perfectly inflated, there is no tyre burst, said Jt Commissioner of Police (law and order) Himanshu Roy on Monday. The car’s brakes too were found intact.

Nooriya was taken by the police to the pub where she had partied with her friends on Friday night and to the accident spot. “Soon after her arrest, Nooriya told the police that she had not more than two pegs of alcohol that night and lost control of her car as someone was chasing,” ACP (South Mumbai) R K Padmanabhan said.

Nooriya is currently lodged at the Azad Maidan police station’s lock-up, where she has not eaten much for two days. According to police, she told her interrogators that she was about to take a swing of beer from a can and had opened mouth when she lost control of the vehicle.

The police are awaiting the report from the forensic lab to ascertain if Nooriya had consumed drugs. “Nooriya who was already speeding, was taking a swig of beer when she lost control of her car and rammed a taxi first and then the bike and police jeep,” Padmanabhan said.

The police recovered three unopened beer cans from her Honda CR-V after the incident and are certain that she was under influence of alcohol. So much so that after the incident, Nooriya slowly walked out of her car and went to the two persons, PSI Shinde and Afzal, and uttered “Sorry” to them. By that time, Afzal was perhaps dead while PSI Shinde was struggling for his life.

Nooriya had ample opportunity to flee from the scene but she could not due to her inebriated condition, Jt CP Roy said.

It has also come to light that Nooriya was actually trying to flee past the traffic police to avoid getting caught in her drunken condition.
A traffic constable had flagged her some distance before the junction when she was driving at over 100 km/hr and she only increased the speed to 150 km/hr to escape detection. At the junction, a taxi was at the red signal and Nooriya swerved to jump the signal but instead hit the taxi, a police officer said.

Nooriya has a valid driving licence, but the vehicle is registered in the name of her father.
DH News Service