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19 March 2024

Emirates Road Crash: Young engineer among the 7 killed

Published
By VM Sathish

In a tragic road accident seven people were killed and 13 others injured when a minibus collided with a truck on Emirates Road behind Al Maktoum International Airport on Tuesday morning.

The accident saw several employees of Ascent, Al Shafar Steel Engineering LLC in Dubai Industrial Park, killed and injured including Indian Engineer, Evin Kumar.

According to a senior official from Ascent, the 29-year-old engineer was travelling with other workers and the victims were Arabs, Indians and Pakistanis nationals.

His friends and family members are mourning his death and are preparing documents to repatriate his body.

"We do not know how the accident occurred or any other details. He is no more and the body is still with the authorities. Right now we trying to arrange the documents," a family member told Emirates 24|7.

Evin was earlier employed with Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Middle East Private Ltd.

A former colleague told Emirates 24|7, "I used to work with Evin. He was our site engineer and was a very good person. On Tuesday we heard that he lived in Al Nahda. He is unmarried and his father Swami also works in Dubai."

"Our management is busy arranging the documents for repatriating the dead bodies of the deceased employees. Some of the injured employees are undergoing treatment in various hospitals and few of them are serious," informed an employee.

Kumar studied engineering at Sathyabhama University Chennai and was living with his parents in the UAE.

"We have some common friends and in between I lost contact with Evin. But recently we reconnected and I was shocked to hear this news," said one of his friends.

Evin Kumar's father has been working in a steel company for more than thirty years and his son joined Ascent about a year ago, according to family sources. 

The minibus was about to reach the Ascent office in the Dubai Investment Park when it collided with the heavy duty truck

The Pakistani driver of the bus and another senior executive of the company also died on the spot. A procurement officer Hozefa Zohar Bandukwala, head of procurement with the company also succumbed to his injuries.  

All the passengers who were in the 20-seater bus have either died or sustained severe injuries. 

The company did not officially release the name of the casualties or injured as police investigation is going on. 

There are other victims in the accident who hail from southern part of India and colleagues identified Ganesh Polippilli as another Ascent employee who died in the accident. 

Ganesh, according to his friends, hails from Andhra Pradesh and worked as a draughtsman in Ascent Steel. 

The accident

The accident occurred at 8am on Tuesday towards Abu Dhabi, according to a police source.

The police source also said that the truck had stopped in the middle of the road (third lane) after colliding with a pick-up. Lack of attention by the omnibus driver, who did not leave adequate room while driving, resulted in the omnibus crashing into the rear of the truck.

Policemen, rescue teams and ambulances, rushed to the accident spot, and the injured were taken to the nearby hospitals.

Some of the passengers sustained severe injuries and had to be transferred in a helicopter to Rashid Hospital, while those who suffered moderate injuries were taken by ambulance cars, the source from Dubai Police added.

The bodies of the dead passengers were extricated from the bus.

Lt. Col. Ahmad Atiq Burquibah, Deputy Director of Dubai Police’s Search and Rescue Department, said, "Rescue teams had to extricate all those injured in the crash and the bodies of the dead passengers stuck in the bus. The team used hydraulic tools and shears in the process."

The Commander of Dubai Police, Lt Gen. Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina, has called on motorists to be cautious on roads, urging them not to risk their lives when they are fatigued. He also asked them to park in a safe area in case of a traffic accident in order to avoid a collision.