Mumbai: 14-year-old boy, family driver die as car falls into lift shaft

The family didn’t realise the two were in the building elevator shaft, and thought the boy had gone missing. The 26-year-old driver was to get married in a month

A 14-year-old boy and his family driver died on Wednesday when the car in which they were practising driving fell into a car lift shaft of a 22-storey residential building in Nagpada around 12.30 pm.

The two died after the car they were taking driving lessons in fell into the elevator shaft. Pic/Bipin Kokate

Police said the boy, Hafeez Patel, was taking driving lessons from Javed Ahmed Shaikh (26) on the spacious second floor of the building, Iqbal Heights. While reversing, the boy crashed the car into the elevator gate and plunged it into the shaft. The elevator at the time was on the third floor.

A police official said Patel’s family, which resides in the building, approached the police around 5.30pm to lodge a missing person complaint. “We started tracking the boy’s mobile phone and traced it through GPS to the building. It was only around this time that the watchman figured out that a car had fallen into the lift shaft.”

The car lift hadn’t been used in a long time and so, no one found the two earlier, said the official.

Both Patel and Shaikh were taken to Wokhardt Hospital near the Agripada police station around 7.30 pm. A doctor from the hospital told mid-day that both were declared brought dead. Around 8.30 pm, the bodies were taken to Nair Hospital for a post-mortem examination.

Patel lived in Iqbal Heights with his parents and two sisters. Patel’s father is a cousin of Rafeeq Patel, the owner of Dudhwala Builders. A member of Iqbal Heights society said at the time of the accident, the boy’s mother was at home. The worried family decided to approach the police when repeated calls to Patel’s phone went unanswered.

Shaikh, who resided in Byculla with his parents and an elder brother, was to get married in a month. His uncle, Hassan, told mid-day that the family was in the middle of preparations for the wedding.

As news of the accident spread, around 50 people thronged the building. Over 100 others stood at the post-mortem examination centre. More than 25 police personnel and a mobile van were deployed till the end of the post-mortem examination.

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