Blood tests confirm Mumbai lawyer in fatal car crash was horribly drunk

The corporate lawyer behind the wheel of the Audi Q3 that resulted in the deaths of two people in Mumbai, reportedly had four to six times the permissible amount of alcohol content in her blood. [caption id=“attachment_2292228” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. IBNLive[/caption] The permissible limit of blood alcohol concentration is 0.03 percent or 30 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, but according to a  The Times of India report, 35-year-old Janhavi Gadkar’s blood alcohol content (BAC) was 120 mg per 100 ml, four times the permissible limit. On the other hand, another report in Hindustam Times said that her BAC was actually six times the permissible limit, at 200 mg per 100 ml. Gadkar, who the police say is a legal consultant with a major corporation, was out for dinner at the Hotel Marine Plaza on Tuesday where she allegedly consumed alcohol. The lawyer, in her statement, had claimed she had drunk only two pegs of whisky, according to the TOI report. “Instead of beer, for fun, I decided to have whisky that day. I had two pegs of Ballantine’s Whisky and had dinner after that. Our total bill was around Rs 2,000. I paid the bill,” Mid-Day quoted Gadkar as saying in her statement to the police. Gadkar also said in her statement that she left the Marine Plaza hotel at around 10 pm on Monday and then stopped at Marine Drive for around two hours before she began driving again. According to the Rashtriya Chemical Fertilisers (RCF) police, Gadkar while heading home to her apartment in the suburb of Chembur, took the south-bound stretch of the Eastern Freeway instead of the north-bound lane she was supposed to be on. NDTV reported that she might have driven on the wrong side of the freeway for 11 km before the accident. Some witnesses also claimed they could hear loud music coming from Gadkar’s car, which had been travelling at a very high speed. The two killed in the accident were identified as taxi driver Mohammad Abdul Sayyad (55) and Mohammad Salim Saboowala (50), who was travelling in the taxi with his family. Saboowala had been travelling with his wife and three children, all of whom escaped with minor injuries. The family were returning home after celebrating Noman clearing his SSC exam with high marks. The family is now planning to employ a lawyer to oppose bail for Gadkar and will push for the case to be fast-tracked, reported TOI. Gadkar has been booked for drunk driving and culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which means she could face a jail term of up to 10 years. Gadkar will be produced before the Kurla court in Mumbai on Friday. Her statement had been recorded by the police on Tuesday. After this incident, the Mumbai police have decided to bring about a significant shift in their anti-drink-and-drive campaign. More woman constables will now be on duty to conduct breathalyser tests on drunk woman drivers, according to Indian Express. “A police review of its campaign showed that of the 15,000-odd cases in which drunk drivers were booked last year, just 12 were women. This year, only one was arrested and convicted of the 4,261 cases recorded between January 1 and April 30,” said the report. (With agency inputs)