Mumbai: A magistrate court on Tuesday remanded into 14 days of judicial custody a 44-year-old nutritionist who allegedly ran her SUV over an eight-year-old crossing a Bandra road last Sunday.The magistrate, E T Ingale, rejected police’s request to extend accused Megha Rawal’s custody after investigators said they had found no further link or material during her one-day custody, which ended on Tuesday.Rawal’s bail application is scheduled to be heard by a sessions court on Wednesday.Opposing further police custody, her lawyers, Ankita Singh and Bhavya Shah, said no call data record (CDR) had established that she was on a call while driving or at the time of the accident. They argued that there were also no grounds to invoke Section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder)—a stringent charge usually reserved for extreme recklessness such as drunk driving.Police said the CCTV footage recovered from the spot was grainy and could not confirm whether Rawal had used her phone at the time. Her lawyers said she called her husband only after learning that her vehicle had knocked down the child. Her phone has been sent for forensic analysis and CDR examination.Inspector Sachin Rane said in court that investigators had recorded the statement of a milk seller in Bandra’s Mount Mary Road. Police have also investigated whether any dispute existed among the complainant, Rawal and their relatives and found no objectionable information.The parents of the child, Ansh Gupta, and other relatives, who were in court, accused Rawal of driving rashly. Rajendra Gupta (47), the father, said Ansh was conceived via IVF after nearly two decades of marriage and sought severe punishment for Rawal. “…he was good at studies and we dreamt of him becoming a police officer.”As Rawal was being escorted to a police vehicle after the hearing, Ansh’s family charged at her. Police shielded Rawal and drove away while the family chased and banged on the vehicle.Concerned that an angry mob could damage it, Bandra police have moved Rawal’s SUV out of their station premises. DCP (west zone-2) Mohit Garg said Rawal had rushed Ansh in the SUV to a hospital after the accident.
