Saksham Yadav, the world powerlifting champion has died in a car accident on Sunday morning on the Delhi-Panipat highway (NH-1). He was in Swift Dzire with five other junior powerlifters. His car was speeding through dense fog on the highway when it hit the road divider and two poles. The car got out of control and flipped many times. Saksham and four of his partners have lost their lives where one of them is critically injured and battling for his life in a hospital.
The police have stated that all of them were on their way to a Murthal dhaba to eat parathas. The car was at a high speed and they also found some bottles in the car which raises the possibility of their drunken stage when the accident happened.
The Police Control Room (PCR) staff present at the spot alerted Alipur police station around 4 am. The car was completely mangled and all 6 including Saksham Yadav (21), Tikamchand (27), Saurabh (18), Yogesh (24), Harish Rai (20) and Rohit had to be extracted from it. Four of the powerlifters Tikamchand, Saurabh, Harish, and Yogesh were declared dead on the spot where Saksham and Rohit were rushed to Max Hospital in Shalimar Bagh.
Max referred Saksham to AIIMS Trauma Centre at 9:10 am owing to the fact that his condition was way too critical and constantly deteriorating. After the struggle of 14 hours, Saksham breathed his last breath and died. The hospital has revealed that the 21-year-old powerlifter had three cardiac arrests, two at the Max hospital and one at the trauma center. His condition was very critical and he had almost no chances of survival. Saksham was declared dead on the next day.
Police also revealed that six of them had met at Tikamchand’s resident in Timarpur, North Delhi, after which they roamed around in the city for more than two hours before heading to Murthal to eat parathas.
Their car hit the divider approx 100 meters from the Singhu border. Whoever was driving the car swung sharply to the left to regain the control and ended up crashing into two poles standing together. The car then flipped over three times. People present at the site have stated that accident almost looked like a movie stunt.
Saksham Yadav was a resident of Nangloi, North Delhi. He won gold for India at senior powerlifting world championship in Moscow in 2017 which was organized by World Powerlifting Congress. He had also won gold in 2016 in a world junior and sub-junior powerlifting championship which was held in Poland.
Indian Powerlifting Federation president Mohit Suri has stated that it is a big loss for the sport as all of them had a great career ahead of them.
Avni S. Singh