A 20-year-old struggling model and actor died after a car knocked her down at JVPD traffic signal as she was on her way to meet a relative at a Vile Parle hotel yesterday morning.
It was not clear whether the victim, Neeral, was walking on the road or was in an autorickshaw when the accident occurred at 7.30 am.
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The police said Neeral, who came to the city from Bhopal three years ago to pursue a modelling and film career and was living as a paying guest at Lokhandwala in Andheri, succumbed to her injuries in Cooper Hospital. Neeral had appeared in some serials and ads.
The police said they were trying to acquire images from the CCTV cameras at the traffic signal and had approached the traffic police to clear the confusion on how the accident happened.
The police said the car, a Honda City, hit a lamppost after Neeral was knocked down. It was driven by Purbesh Ramchandra Pathkar (25), a bank employee.
The police said Pathkar tried to flee but was caught by locals. Pathkar was arrested after the DN Nagar police station was alerted.
The police said the accused defended himself, claiming in his statement that he did not knock down Neeral and he hit the lamppost because a Xylo car rammed into his vehicle.
“We still don’t have any idea how Neeral was knocked down,” Senior Police Inspector V Bhoite said. “We have approached the traffic police for the CCTV images.”
Neeral was taken to Cooper by a biker, Abu Shahab Mohammad Naeem Khan.
“I was shocked to see that no one from the crowd of about 50 people bothered to take the girl to hospital,” Khan said. “I called the police and took the girl to hospital in a rickshaw. No one helped me” Neeral’s family was informed about her death by her roommate Neha Pawar.
The police said the arrested Pathkar was not drunk, but two friends of his in the vehicle — car owner Rahul Purohit and a man identified as only Bidhray — had consumed alcohol at a party the previous night. u00a0