45-Year-Old Man Crushed To Death At Gurugram Toll Booth After Stepping Out Over FASTag Issue

Representative Image. (AI Generated)

In a shocking incident, a 45-year-old man was crushed to death and dragged for nearly 200 metres under a dumper truck at the Kherki Daula toll plaza on the Delhi–Jaipur Expressway early on Friday morning, police said.

The incident occurred when a man, who was on his way to drop a friend at the airport, stepped out of his car to address an insufficient balance issue flagged during his FASTag scan. He was caught in the path of a speeding truck whose driver accelerated the moment the boom barrier lifted.

According to the police, the victim has been identified as Mubin Khan. He lived in ward number seven of Tijara in Alwar district and had left home at dawn to drop his friend, Puneet Kumar, to the Indira Gandhi International Airport who was scheduled to fly to Bengaluru.

Investigators familiar with the case said Khan’s Hyundai Aura was flagged after the automatic deduction of Rs 95 failed due to insufficient FASTag balance. Toll booth staff instructed him to pull over and leave his mobile phone as collateral while he paid the manual toll of Rs 118 via UPI.

He parked the car a short distance ahead, stepped out, and walked toward the operator’s cabin. Although he recharged his FASTag with Rs 100, the update had not reflected by the time he reached the booth.

According to Sandeep Turan, spokesperson for the Gurugram police, the accident occurred moments after Khan completed his payment and began walking back.

“A truck entered the lane, and when the boom barrier lifted after the toll was deducted from its Fastag, the driver accelerated. He ran over Khan instantly. It appears he either didn’t realise he had mowed someone down, or he deliberately kept driving to escape,” Turan said.

Khan was pulled under the truck’s rear wheels and dragged for several metres, leaving his body completely mutilated, Hindustan Times reported.

The truck sped away, and it was only when toll workers noticed a trail of blood and body parts that they realised what had happened. Even Kumar, who sat in the car just a few feet aware, remained unaware of the horrific accident. He repeatedly called Khan’s phone to ask what was causing the delay, but nobody answered.

He learned that an accident had taken place, when he walked back to the booth. After rushing towards the small crowd gathering near the lane exit, he recognised his friend’s body and immediately alerted the family in Tijara.

CCTV footage from the plaza captured the truck’s Rajasthan registration number, and police said the driver would be arrested soon.

According to a senior official from the toll-operating firm, the truck, loaded with gravel, sped off moments after the accident. CCTV footage has been handed over to police.

Dilshad Khan, a relative, said Mubin and Puneet had left Tijara shortly before 4am. “Kumar’s flight was at 9am. They had been close friends for years. We received the information almost instantly, and several of us rushed to Gurugram,” he said.

He added that the police did not allow the family to see the body. “They warned us not to open the bag after the post-mortem because it was too mutilated. We didn’t get to see him even one last time.”

“His wife Sarjeena is repeatedly fainting since she got to know about his death. A doctor visited her at home and gave her some medicines to sleep,” he said.

Khan owned several acres of ancestral land and was active in real estate dealings across Tijara and parts of Alwar. He was also the family’s backbone — the sole provider, the problem-solver, the person everyone depended on.

“His daughter Muskaan, 20, and sons Arman, 16, and Asif, 17, still cannot grasp that he is gone,” Dilshad said. “The entire family is shattered. And police have still not taken even arrested the truck driver.”

An FIR has been registered on the complaint of Khan’s brother, Ramzan Khan against the truck driver under Sections 106 (causing death by negligence) and 281 (rash driving) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at the Kherki Daula police station.