My husband is a victim, not accused: Wife of SUV driver held in coaching centre deaths case
New Delhi (PTI): "My husband has not done anything wrong. I would like to refer to my husband as a victim and not an accused," says Shima, the wife of Manuj Kathuria, who has been arrested in connection with the drowning of three IAS aspirants in the flooded basement of a coaching centre.
Kathuria, a businessman, drove his SUV through the flooded street in Old Rajinder Nagar, causing the water to swell, breach the gates of the coaching centre building and inundate the basement, according to police.
He is among the seven people arrested so far in the case.
Shima told PTI that her husband had no idea about the gate of the coaching centre breaking due to his car.
"A gate cannot break like that. It must have weakened due to frequent waterlogging in the area," she said.
"Displaced water could have been hitting the gates earlier also. The water displaced by my husband's car must have been the final straw, causing it to break," she added.
Shima said her family is in a "state of panic" since her husband's arrest but they have complete faith in the judicial system.
"We are very positive. We have full faith in the judicial system and I am sure that the court will take the right decision," she said.
A city court on Tuesday reserved its order on Kathuria's bail plea.
Shima recalled that police arrived at their residence around 5.30 pm on Sunday and told the family that they had come to question Manuj in connection with the coaching centre deaths.
"Police said there was no criminal liability and they were taking him for questioning since his vehicle was seen in a viral video captured around that time (when the water gushed in the coaching centre)," she said.
"Around 30 minutes later, my father-in-law received a call from him (Manuj) saying he had been arrested," she added.
Shima said the family got to know on Sunday morning that three lives were lost in the tragic incident.
"We were not even given a copy of the FIR till the bail hearing. Our legal counsel made several requests," she claimed.
Shima said her husband has been accused of rash driving by police but the video clearly shows that the brake lights of the vehicle were on at the time of the incident.
"He was driving in first gear on the waterlogged road. The car could not be driven at a speed of 5 km/hour in that situation, but it was not speeding either. It must have been somewhere around 15 km/hr or 20 km/hr. He was applying brakes constantly and not speeding his SUV," she claimed.
"The car would have been stuck had he stopped. He did not know which buildings he crossed. He was making sure that he was driving straight and not hitting anyone. We had never been to those institutes nor knew how they are operating," she said.
Shima said her husband's car might have crossed several buildings on the waterlogged street but it was only the said coaching centre's gate that broke.
She said the incident occurred when her husband had gone to drop two of his accountants at Karol Bagh metro station amid the rain.
"We had taken our dog for a walk to the nearby Ridge area. We were almost home when it started raining. My father-in-law called and asked my husband to drop our two accountants at the metro station. When we returned, I got down and my husband left to drop them," she said.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
