NRI gets 5-yr jail term for rash driving, acquitted of drug charge

Accused of driving while drunk, an NRI beautician has been convicted by a Mumbai court and sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of killing two people, one of whom was a police official, due to rash driving in 2010. Nooriya Haveliwala was found guilty under various sections of the Motor Vehicles Act and the Indian Penal Code by a special court in Mumbai, but was acquitted of the charge that she was driving under the influence of narcotics or alcohol, a Hindustan Times report said. [caption id=“attachment_513354” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  NRI beautician Nooriya Haveliwala after being arrested in a drunken driving case in Mumbai on Thursday. PTI[/caption] Haveliwala was also ordered to pay a fine of Rs five lakh by the court, CNN-IBN reported. The police had accused Haveliwala of driving under the influence of alcohol and narcotics while she was returning home from a party in south Mumbai’s Malabar Hill area on 29 January 2010. The 27-year-old beautician had allegedly been driving at a high speed when she lost control and struck a police jeep, a taxi and a motorcycle on Marine Drive in south Mumbai. Haveliwala had been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, rash and negligent driving, and various sections of the Motor Vehicles Act, the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act.