Noida techie death: Developer accused of negligence arrested
Noida (PTI): Police on Tuesday arrested the director of a real estate group in connection with the death of a 27-year-old software engineer, whose car had plunged into a water-filled pit at a construction site in Noida's Sector 150, officials said.
"Abhay Kumar, director of MZ Wiztown Planners and one of the accused in the case, has been arrested from Sector 150," Additional Commissioner of Police (Greater Noida) Hemant Upadhyay said.
Yuvraj Mehta was killed in the early hours of Saturday after his car skidded in dense fog, broke a drain boundary and fell into a deep, waterlogged pit, dug for the basement of an under-construction commercial complex near a drain.
The police had filed an FIR against two real estate developers -- MZ Wiztown Planners and Lotus Greens -- on a complaint by the victim's father, Raj Kumar Mehta, who alleged negligence by local authorities and sought accountability.
While Kumar of Wiztown Planners has been arrested, there was no official update as of Tuesday afternoon from the police on action against the other accused firm.
The arrest came on a day a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by the Additional Director General (ADG), Meerut Zone, Bhanu Bhaskar visited the accident site to examine the circumstances leading to the incident.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had on Monday evening ordered the constitution of the three-member SIT to probe the case, amid public outrage and allegations of negligence by officials and developers.
The state government also removed senior IAS officer Lokesh M as the Noida Authority CEO on Monday, putting him on "waitlist".
The FIR has been lodged under Sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 106 (causing death by negligence) and 125 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) and other relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the police said.
Investigations are continuing, the police added.
The incident has sparked allegations of negligence, inadequate safety arrangements and delays in rescue efforts, with the victim's father saying he had reached the spot along with police and other rescue personnel were also there but could not save him.
"If expert divers could have gone in, then maybe my son would have been saved. Yuvraj kept crying for help as the car drowned," he told reporters.
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
