Navi Mumbai: A 40 year old man from Airoli died while his wife and daughter are critical after a drunk man driving his SUV crashed on to the car in which the family was travelling on Palm Beach road. The accident happened on the wee hours of Thursday at around 3.30 am near Sarsole junction, Nerul when a speeding Mahindra Thar collided with a Renault Kwid car traveling from Belapur to Airoli.

The accident resulted in the death of the Manish Shivaji Pednekar (40), who was driving Renault Kwid car while his wife Sneha (34) and their 4-year-old daughter Ananya were seriously injured. After the accident, the driver of the Thar, Omkar Vijay More (26), fled the scene but was arrested by Nerul police later that morning.

“It was found that More was driving the Thar under the influence of alcohol when he crashed into the Renault Kwid. He was arrested and produced before the court and is currently under police custody,” senior police inspector Brahmananda Naikwadi from Nerul police station said. Pednekar family was a resident of Airoli Sector-8.

“The wife is not in a condition to talk and hence it is not clear from where they were returning,” said the officer. The people who gathered post the accident, rushed the accident victims to hospital. While PEdnekar was declared dead on arrival, his wife and daughter are undergoing treatment for critical injuries.

In the course of the investigations, police found beer cans in the Thar vehicle. The accused More, was a businessman from sector 2 in Sanpada. He has been arrested under sections of BNS for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and rash and negligent driving along with sections of Motor Vehicle Act.