On the morning of 25 June 2026, 34-year-old event manager Sarthak Mattoo was killed in a hit-and-run collision on the Rajokri flyover of the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. Sarthak was riding his motorcycle to a work assignment in Noida when a speeding, leased Mahindra Thar SUV struck him from behind and ran over him. The occupants of the SUV fled the scene without offering assistance.
Sarthak’s family has publicly expressed deep grief and outrage, with his father appealing directly to top government officials for justice, while also questioning delays in police procedures. In the latest development, Delhi Police have tracked down the vehicle, arrested the driver 30-year-old software tester Apurv Singh and detained the passenger who had leased the car, following a detailed analysis of CCTV escape routes.
The Morning of the Tragedy
Sarthak Mattoo, a resident of DLF Phase 4 in Gurugram, had recently returned to India from the United Kingdom to build his career. He had spent the last three months working with Enout, a Gurugram-based event management company, where colleagues remembered him as an exceptionally driven and talented professional who had just successfully completed his probation.
At around 6:30 AM on Thursday, Sarthak left home early on his black Pulsar motorcycle to oversee an event in Noida. His colleagues were driving down the same route in separate cars just a short distance behind him. As Sarthak approached the Rajokri flyover, a speeding Mahindra Thar bearing a Karnataka registration number approached from behind. According to preliminary police investigations, the driver of the SUV made a sudden, erratic lane change. Sarthak lost balance, collided with the side of the vehicle, and was instantly crushed under the heavy wheels of the SUV.
Callous Abandonment on the Highway
What has profoundly shaken Sarthak’s family and the public is the complete lack of empathy shown by the vehicle’s occupants. Rather than stopping to check on the severely injured rider or rushing him to a medical facility, the driver accelerated and sped away from the scene.
A kind samaritan stopped to help Sarthak, who was lying on the tarmac with critical lower-body injuries. The passerby managed to unlock Sarthak’s phone using his fingerprint and dialed the last number on his call log, which connected to an office colleague. The team rushed to the scene and, working alongside a police PCR van, coordinated Sarthak’s transport to the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre in Vasant Kunj. Tragically, despite their desperate efforts, doctors declared him dead on arrival.
“We Lit His Pyre Instead”: A Father’s Grief
The tragedy has left Sarthak’s parents entirely devastated. He was their only child, and the fatal crash occurred just two days before his 34th birthday.”It is his birthday today,” his father, Surender Mattoo, said while holding up his son’s damaged helmet during an emotional media appeal. “Instead of a celebration, we are preparing for his funeral. This was not merely an accident; it was a hit-and-run, a deliberate act of killing a young man. They left my son lying on the road when the least they could have done was take him to a hospital.”
The grieving father has posted an emotional video message appealing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Delhi Police Commissioner to ensure a transparent investigation. The family also raised critical concerns regarding procedural transparency, pointing out that authorities requested a toxicological blood sample nearly 50 hours after the crash, which they argue compromises the reliability of checking if the driver was driving under the influence.
The Investigation and Arrests
Following the incident, the Vasant Kunj South Police Station registered a First Information Report (FIR) for rash driving and causing death by negligence. Investigators used a network of highway CCTV cameras to track the SUV’s escape route, locating the vehicle in the Chittaranjan Park (CR Park) area of South Delhi.
The vehicle, registered to a Bengaluru-based tech company, was leased to an employee named Sagar Saha, a native of Bihar. When tracked down by police, Saha revealed that he was riding in the front passenger seat while his friend, Apurv Singh a 30-year-old software tester living in Gurugram was “test-driving” the vehicle from Gurugram to the Dwarka Expressway and back when the collision occurred.
The Delhi Police have formally seized the Mahindra Thar and apprehended Apurv Singh. Singh’s blood samples have been sent to Safdarjung Hospital for analysis to determine if alcohol played a factor in the reckless driving that cost a young man his life, while Saha continues to co-operate with the ongoing investigation.
The Logical Indian’s Perspective
This heart-wrenching incident exposes a deeply unsettling reality on our roads: the systemic erosion of basic human empathy and community responsibility. A road crash is a tragedy, but fleeing the scene and leaving a severely wounded person to die on the tarmac transitions from negligence into a profound moral failure. When we step behind the wheel, we carry a collective duty of care toward every pedestrian and cyclist sharing the space.
We must foster a culture where saving a human life takes unconditional priority over fear of legal consequences or the urge to protect oneself. True justice lies not only in holding the perpetrators legally accountable but also in reforming our social conscience so that no citizen is ever abandoned in their moment of absolute vulnerability.
#WATCH | A motorcycle rider died allegedly after being hit by a Thar in the Rajokri area of Delhi on 25th June. Visuals of the two vehicles involved in the accident.
— ANI (@ANI) June 27, 2026
Police say, "The deceased was wearing a helmet at the time of the incident. The deceased was behind the vehicle… pic.twitter.com/uMaP7uWDho
