5-yr-old crushed between car, auto

Found dead in illegal parking lot, locals allege it ran with police connivance

The body of a five-year-old boy was found stuck between two vehicles parked in an allegedly illegal parking lot near his house in northeast Delhi’s Sundar Nagri. 

Victim Mohammed Ujeffa’s father alleged that the parking space had come up on a children’s park few months back, and had been running with the connivance of local police officers.

The incident happened on Thursday afternoon between 1pm and 3 pm. “Yesterday afternoon around 1pm, after finishing his lunch, Ujeffa went out of the house to play. His mother was at home, while I had gone to work. Usually he plays in front of the house. Yesterday, for more than one hour when his mother didn’t see him anywhere near the house, she called me,” Ujeffa’s father Khalid recalled.

Khalid, a scrap dealer came back home from work in half an hour, and started searching for the child along with some neighbours.

“We went to the children’s park where people now park their vehicles. As we were searching Ujeffa there, one of the boys shouted that he had found him,” Khalid said.

“As I went running near him, I was shocked to see my son stuck between an autorickshaw and an Alto,” he added.

He said the body was in an upright, standing posture. “It was sure that he had been crushed to death by the two vehicles,” Khalid said.

After the arrival of police, the body was taken to the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital where his post-mortem was done.

Police have refused to divulge any detail about the reason of the kid’s death. They also denied that any illegal parking was running from the place. But Khalid said, “Two men Goncha and Bundan are running this space. They give commission to the police on a weekly basis to be able to continue with their business.”

“We are waiting for the autopsy report, before that we can’t comment on the reasons of death. As of now, we have registered a case of accidental death. As the investigation progresses, we will update the charges,” said a police officer.

Residents of M-Block Sundar Nagri said a year ago, the area was divided between a children’s park and public toilet. They claimed they demolished the toilet when criminal incidents like snatching, eve-teasing, and murder started taking place there.

“After the demolition of the public toilet, the void was filled by the parking lot mafia. So many kids play here and you can’t always keep an eye on them. These kind of incidents will be repeated until the parking of vehicles in the park is banned completely,” said a resident of M-block.