BMW hit-and-run: Damaged investigation right from the start

New Delhi: Suraj Sherawat, the 19-year-old accused of driving a BMW that killed a pregnant woman and the driver of her car, will be part of an identification parade today.

This, so far, is the only progress that the Gurgaon Police has made in a case that has provoked public anger and media attention.

A court in Gurgaon yesterday agreed that Mr Sherawat, who was arrested briefly on Tuesday before being granted bail, can be presented before eyewitnesses. The husband of the victim, Kshama Chopra, will be asked to identify him.

But 12 days after the accident took place, that appears to be the only possibility of evidence against Mr Sherawat. Much of the outrage among residents in and around Delhi is that this should not be a tough case to crack.

Mr Sherwat was in a BMW owned by his father, a car dealer with political aspirations, who lives in Gurgaon.  On the night of May 5, the BMW, reportedly racing at over 100 km per hour, collided with a Tata Indigo at the IFFCO Chowk intersection in Gurgaon. The car that was hit had five passengers: Kshama Chopra, three months pregnant; her parents and husband; and the car's driver. Kshama and the driver died. Her husband and her parents are in hospital.

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The BMW had two people - Mr Sherawat and his friend, a student named Daksh Jaiswal who has so far given the police conflicting accounts of who was driving the car. After the accident, an eye-witness took the other passengers of the Tata Indigo to hospital. That witness - crucial to the case- has not been traced by the police.

The police has asked for permission to conduct a blood test on Mr Sherwat and to collect the clothes he was wearing on the night of the accident. Both will be checked against evidence collected from the BMW. But for five days after the accident, the police took no action. The owner of the BMW was not identified - the police claims it took a while because the car had a Chandigarh license plate. No attempt was made to register a case against Mr Sherawat's father, the owner of the car.

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Their actions have so far made the Sherawats appear like a powerful family trying to circumvent the law. Mr Sherawat was missing till he surrendered in court on Tuesday. He was escorted by 12 bouncers, who got aggressive with reporters and cameramen trying to cover the case.

Then, on May 12, a man named Rajesh, who allegedly works for Mr Sherawat's father, surrendered to the police, saying he was driving the BMW. The police and the court handling the case dismissed this claim.

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In an email sent on May 13 to a friend, Kshama's husband shared his desperation over the pitiful state of the police investigation.

"You have to stand in front of a speeding BMW to feel what I felt when I saw her," he wrote from hospital. "Is this how cheap life is?"