Reporter’s diary: When Delhi-Mumbai E-way fell silent for a fatally injured couple

The victims survived for hours inside their crushed car. Their children were orphaned by gaps in patrols, response systems and human intervention.

Eight hours after a crash on the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway’s Nuh stretch, Lachhi Ram, 42, and his wife Kusum Lata, 38, were found dead inside their mangled WagonR. Both had remained alive for hours after the accident, trapped inside the vehicle, bleeding and waiting for help that never arrived. No passerby stopped, no patrol vehicle reached the spot and no emergency response was triggered through the night. By the time the help arrived at 7.38am on December 3, it was futile.

The mangled WagonR lay unnoticed till morning, turning a crash into a story of administrative failure and human apathy. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

The couple’s deaths left behind four orphaned children.

The family is from Karauli district in Rajasthan. Ram had been living in Delhi, hoping to build a more secure future for his children through education and stable work. His WagonR, bearing a Delhi registration number, symbolised that aspiration. The vehicle, now scrap metal, lies at a police post, reduced to evidence, its bloodstained metal and interior marking the end of that pursuit.

When I met Ram’s father, Devi Singh, he struggled to speak. His voice was hoarse, his eyes vacant and his body appeared unwilling to accept the loss. He repeatedly asked the same question, not in anger but disbelief. Why did no one help my son?

Ram’s cousin, Deepak Singh, said he had seen CCTV footage of the crash. “It looked like Ram tried to move closer to his wife at the end,” he said quietly. “As if he wanted to comfort her.” The footage, according to the family, shows the couple dying together on a national highway without assistance.

What followed the deaths deepened the family’s anguish. Officials exchanged responsibility. Police pointed to the National Highways Authority of India. NHAI cited contractors. The administrative response culminated in the addition of one more patrol vehicle to cover a 60-kilometre stretch of the expressway.

For authorities, the nights remained peaceful. Files continued to move, and statements were issued. For Devi Singh, peace ended the night his son did not return home. His grandchildren, two sons and two daughters, will no longer run into their parents’ arms. Their childhood, the family said, has been irreversibly altered by inaction.

This was not just a road accident. It was a failure of empathy, duty and basic human response. Highways are meant to connect cities and lives, but for Devi Singh, it disconnected him from the national capital and from his family.

As reporters, documenting loss is routine. Some stories stay not because of how people died, but because of how easily they could have lived.

Eight hours passed on one of India’s most ambitious highways. Not one helping hand arrived.

Debashish is a senior correspondent who covers crime, courts, traffic, transport and DHBVN.