Civic Homicide

Road accidents in India have become almost quotidian. They are so frequent that they barely register beyond a statistic or a fleeting headline. Yet, even by these numbing standards the death of 27-year-old software engineer Yuvraj Mehta, who died last week after his car skidded in dense fog in Greater Noida stands apart.

Mehta was driving home from work in Gurugram when his vehicle smashed through a low boundary and plunged into a deep, water-filled excavation pit on an adjoining commercial plot in Sector 150. The pit was unfenced, unmarked and unlit. There were no barricades, no reflectors and no warning signs in a city that prides itself on planned development.

But Mehta did not die on impact. Trapped in his partially submerged car, he managed to climb onto the roof and call his father. For a harrowing 90 minutes, he pleaded to be rescued. Police reached the site while he was still alive and crying for help. Yet no one entered the water. Unable to swim, he clung to the vehicle until exhaustion and cold overwhelmed him. When he was finally pulled out, he was dead.

The excavation pit existed because the Uttar Pradesh irrigation department and the Noida Authority failed to construct a rainwater regulator despite an agreement reached in 2023. Water mismanagement at the Hindon–Yamuna confluence allowed rainwater to accumulate unchecked in a dug-up plot, effectively converting it into an unfenced waterbody beside a public road. There was no drainage, no monitoring and no safety barrier. Following Mehta’s death, officials began playing the blame game in earnest.

The road design compounded the risk. The stretch features a sharp 90-degree turn that becomes especially hazardous in fog. It has no advance warning signage, no adequate lighting and no robust crash barriers. Local residents say accidents had occurred at the same spot earlier and that repeated requests for reflectors and barricades were ignored.

The rescue operation was the most damning chapter of all. It beggars belief that despite multiple agencies including the police, fire services, the State Disaster Response Force and the National Disaster Response Force arriving on the spot, no one was trained, equipped or apparently authorised to enter the water to rescue a dying man. Officials later explained that rescuers feared additional casualties. In plain terms, the State watched a man drown because it had not planned for the possibility that someone might need saving.

One can understand or perhaps even come to terms if the victim had been trapped in some remote ravine or a Himalayan gorge. But this was an urban rescue involving a conscious victim who held on for life for a full 90 minutes. And yet, the government authorities failed a basic duty.

Yuvraj Mehta’s death is no road accident. It is administrative failure with lethal consequences. His death is the sorry outcome of a form of governance that treats safety as optional and accountability as negotiable.