Nidhi is lying, don’t know her; Anjali Singh wasn’t drunk: Family

Family says they did not know Nidhi before the fateful accident.

New Delhi | Updated: 04 January, 2023 3:25 pm IST

Anjali's maternal grandmother Kanta speaking to The New Indian at her residence.

The family of 20-year-old Anjali Singh, who was killed in a brutal hit-and-run case, has denied allegations of her eyewitness friend that the victim was heavily drunk at the time of the accident on Sunday morning.

On the fateful night, Nidhi was riding pillion on Anjali’s scooter on their way back to home before the two-wheeler collided head-on with a Maruti Baleno car. Due to the impact of the collision, Nidhi was tossed off the scooter, and Anjali got stuck beneath a Baleno car that dragged her for several kilometres, resulting in her painful death.

On Tuesday, Nidhi said that the victim was “not in her senses” when they left a hotel room after celebrating the new year.

“She had consumed a lot of alcohol (at the party). We even had a fight over who would drive the scooty. She was not at all in her senses. Before that accident, she was about to ram into a truck but I somehow managed to apply the brakes on time even as I was seated behind her… and we got saved,” Nidhi told media.

Responding to her allegations, her maternal grandmother Kanta accused Nidhi of lying about the sequence of events leading to the gruesome accident.

“I don’t believe her. She is lying. We did not even know Nidhi before this accident,” she told The New Indian at her residence in Sultanpuri area.

Nidhi has also alleged the occupants of the car did not pay heed to Anjali’s pleas for help. “She kept screaming but the car occupants continued to drag her and sped away. They might have felt something was stuck under the car and they reversed… again moved the car forward twice… and then drove away,” he had said.

A post-mortem examination conducted on the victim’s body revealed that she had sustained at least 40 wounds on her body. Released on Tuesday, the report did not find any signs of sexual assault on her.

After the accident, Nidhi went straight to her home in Sultanpur but did not inform anyone until CCTV footage revealed that she was with the victim at the fateful moment. Her statement was recorded by the Delhi Police on Tuesday.

In her defence, Nidhi said that she got scared and could not muster the courage to inform Anjali’s family.