Hema Malini’s driver arrested, family mourns girl’s death

Jaipur, July 3: Veteran film actor and BJP MP Hema Malini, injured in a car crash in Rajasthan that killed a girl child, remained in hospital on Friday even as her driver was arrested for rash driving.

Doctors at the Fortis Escorts Hospital said Hema Malini, 66, was stable and on liquid diet after undergoing a two-hour surgery here late Thursday following the accident near Dausa, over 50 km from Jaipur.

Her apparently speeding sedan rammed into another car coming from the opposite direction, leaving a two-year-old child in that vehicle dead and four others injured, including the parents of the dead girl.

Hema Malini — one of Bollywood’s best known actors — “is fine and conscious”, said Prateem Tamboli of the Fortis Hospital. “She is under our post operative intensive care unit.”

Doctors said earlier that may be discharged on Friday evening. But they told IANS later that the actor-politician will remain warded till Saturday morning.

Earlier, Hema Malini’s car driver, Mahesh Thakur, was arrested on charges of rash driving and causing death by negligence besides other offences, police said.

“We have arrested the driver, a resident of Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh,” a police officer at Dausa told IANS over phone.

At the SMS Hospital in Jaipur, the distraught father of the girl who died was inconsolable while the injured mother kept asking “Chinni kahan hai?”, not knowing that her daughter was dead.

The family was even more hurt that neither the actor nor her aides bothered to ask about their well-being though, they say, the accident was caused by her speeding car.

The mother’s uncle, who did not wish to be identified by me, told IANS: “We have told the father, Hanuman Khandelwal, of the death of the child in the accident. He was shocked and has been crying since yesterday night. We try to console him but fail to do so.

“But we have not told the mother as she is still in a bad condition after the accident,” the relative said.

He said Hema Malini’s car was speeding, and this caused the accident.

The condition of those injured in the other car was “normal”, said a doctor at the government-run SMS Hospital.

Fortis Hospital said Hema Malini, after being brought in around 9.35 p.m., underwent urgent detailed investigations, including X-Ray and CT scan. (IANS)