From BMW to Lamborghini: India's infamous luxury car crashes and uneasy questions they leave behind

• Luxury car crashes in India spark outrage over privilege and delayed justice
• Recent incidents involve heirs, celebrities, and allegations of reckless driving
• Victims' families demand accountability as reforms and investigations continue

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Over nearly three decades, a series of high-profile crashes involving luxury cars has repeatedly jolted the nation - not merely because of the vehicles involved, but because of the uncomfortable questions they leave behind. Each incident has peeled back the same uneasy layers: excessive speed on crowded city roads, the shadow of influence and entitlement and a justice system tested by delay, doubt and public anger.

In the early hours of January 10, 1999, a speeding BMW plowed through a Delhi police checkpoint in Lodhi Colony, killing six people, including three officers, and injuring another, before vanishing into the night. The driver, Sanjeev Nanda, grandson of a former Navy chief, fled the scene, and his accomplices allegedly scrubbed blood from the car at a Golf Links mansion traced via an oil leak.

This shocking hit-and-run, clocked at 140 km/h, ignited national fury over privilege shielding the powerful, culminating in Nanda's 2008 conviction for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The Supreme Court later reduced his two-year sentence to time served, imposing a large fine and community service.

Echoing this impunity, Bollywood star Salman Khan's Toyota Land Cruiser rammed sleepers on Mumbai's Bandra pavement on September 28, 2002, killing one and injuring four; his driver later claimed the wheel, but prosecutors branded him a liar and pinned Khan — leading to a 2015 Bombay High Court acquittal on benefit of doubt.

The grim parade continued. Pune's 2024 Porsche Taycan horror, where a drunk teen heir killed two IT workers at 200 km/h, sparking bail-for-essay outrage and blood-swap arrests.

Noida's cluster included a May 2024 Audi killing 63-year-old pedestrian Janak Dev Shah, a March 2025 Lamborghini test-drive maiming workers (driver bailed swiftly) and another BMW felling two in July 2025.

Culminating February 8, 2026, another supercar horror unfolded in Kanpur when a Rs 10-crore Lamborghini Revuelto smashed into pedestrians, an auto-rickshaw and a bike near GT Road, injuring at least six. Eyewitnesses described the luxury car hurtling at breakneck speed before bouncers whisked away the driver.

The car was later seized from tobacco baron Umesh Mishra's residence, with his son Shivam Mishra named as the prime suspect despite claims a hired driver was behind the wheel. As victims demand justice amid settlement talks, the case echoes the impunity of the past, with police probing reckless driving and fleeing the scene.

Between these bookends, a grim parade of luxury wrecks has scarred India's roads, often starring heirs to wealth and influence who evade swift accountability.

These tragedies - allegedly fueled by alcohol, speed and unregistered exotics - expose systemic rot: delayed blood tests, coerced confessions, tampered evidence and political interventions.

Victims' kin, from cops to daily-wage earners, languish while "VIP brats" leverage clout. Truck drivers rot in jail, but Porsche princes pen essays. Yet outrage has yielded wins — pubs sealed, officers suspended, fast-tracks invoked — hinting reform's potential.