The Palghar police investigating an accident on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai highway — in which Tata Group’s former chairman Cyrus Mistry and fellow traveller Jehangir Pandole were killed on Sunday — have prima facie found that the Mercedes car involved in the mishap was “over-speeding”, that both Mistry and Pandole were not wearing seat belts and that the error of judgement on the part of the driver led to the accident.
The footage from the CCTV cameras installed at a checkpost in the neighbourhood of the mishap site showed that the Mercedes GLC Sports Utility Vehicle, in which Mistry and others were travelling towards a check post twenty minutes prior to the mishap and that it had covered a distance of 20 km in just nine minutes after crossing the Charoti check post.
"When we examined the footage captured by CCTV cameras at the Charoti check post, we found the Mumbai-bound car had crossed the check post at 2.21 pm and the accident took place 20 km ahead," a senior police officer said.
The car, being driven by Mumbai-based gynaecologist Anahita Pandole, rammed into a road divider on the bridge over river Surya at Charoti Naka, around 135 km from Mumbai, killing Mistry (54) and Jahangir Pandole on the spot. Anahita (55) and her husband Darius Pandole (60) were seriously injured in the mishap.
Both the deceased Mistry and Jehangir, who were sitting on the backseats, were not wearing seats at the time of mishap. “The curtain airbags did not open for Mistry and Jahangir as they both were not wearing the seat belts,” a senior police official said.
The police said that Anahita, who was behind the wheels, might have lost control of her vehicle, while overtaking another vehicle at a high speed, from the wrong side, and hit the road divider. “Apart from over-speeding of the vehicle and the error of judgement on the part of the driver might have resulted in the mishap. In addition, the deceased were not wearing seat belts," a police officer said.
The bodies of Mistry and Jahangir Pandole have been to the state-run J J Hospital in Mumbai for post-mortem.
Meanwhile, the injured Pandoles - Darius and Dr Anahita - who survived the car crash—have been shifted from Vapi in Gujarat to the Sir H N Reliance Foundation Hospital in Mumbai. The injured have suffered fractures and are now stable.
In a related development, Cyrus Mistry, a scion of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group, will be held here on Tuesday morning.
“It is with utmost sadness that we announce the sudden and untimely demise of our beloved Cyrus Pallonji Mistry, 54. He succumbed to injuries from an unfortunate car accident on Sunday,” the bereaved family said in its tribute to the departed industrialist.
Mistry is survived by his wife Rohiqa, sons Firoz and Zahan, mother Patsy Mistry, sisters Laila Rustom Jehangir and Aloo Noel Tata and brother Shapoor Mistry.
Born on July 4, 1968 in a Parsi family from then Bombay now Mumbai to parents Pallonji Mistry and Pasty Perin Dubash –both of whom belonged to Zoroastrian faith with roots in India, Cyrus Mistry did Civil Engineering from the University of London in 1990. He later studied at London Business School and was awarded International Executive Masters in Management from the University of London.
After his education, Mistry joined his family construction company Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. Ltd as a director in 1991. Mistry was the managing director of the company, before becoming the head of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group. The Pallonji family holds an 18.5 per cent stake in Tata Sons.