Reverse joyride on highway leaves woman dead

Driving drunk on a busy highway in the dead of night can never be fun. Imagine a motorist, with four other people in his automobile, driving backwards just for fun. The result would be fatal. That's exactly what happened on Tumakuru Road (National Highway 4) in the early hours of Sunday.

A group of five — three men and two women, all from RT Nagar — decided to go on a joyride to Tumakuru. The group consisted of Kavita alias Seema, 32, a native of Solapur, Maharashtra, her friends Juhi Sharma, 45, both employees of a hotel at Majestic, Parvez, 38, Syed Firoz, 42, and Syed Moosa, 37, who are into chocolate business.

The group left Bengaluru around 10.30 pm and stopped over at a roadside dhaba for dinner. Everyone got drunk. The group resumed the joyride around 1.15 am. Firoz was also drunk but still decided to drive. He started driving in reverse. Soon enough, the car hit a tree. As if this was not enough, an unidentified vehicle hit the car because of darkness. The crash killed Kavita who was sitting on the rear seat and left the other four wounded.

Girish, a fellow motorist and eyewitness, said he called the police but nobody came to check for two hours. The car was removed only around 6 am.

Police said they were yet to identify the vehicle that hit the car. Meanwhile, a medical examination proved Firoz was drunk. Police have arrested him. Kavita's body has been handed over to her parents.