Indian minister dies in car crash

New Delhi, June 03. Gopinath Munde, India’s newly-appointed Rural Development Minister, has died in a car crash in the capital, Delhi.

Mr Munde was on his way to the airport to take a flight to his home state of Maharashtra when his car was hit by another vehicle, officials said.

Doctors at the AIIMS hospital said he was not breathing when brought in and efforts to resuscitate him failed.

Mr Munde, 64, was appointed just last week to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new government.

India has some of the most dangerous roads in the world – nearly 140,000 people died in road accidents in India in 2012, according to the government’s National Crime Records Bureau.

Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari told reporters: “An accident took place earlier in the morning, following which he was taken to hospital in Delhi. Doctors declared him dead at about 8am [02:30GMT].”

“Mr Munde was brought to the emergency department… by his personal assistant and driver. He was sitting in the back seat of his car which was hit by another car or any other vehicle… from the side he was sitting,” Dr Amit Gupta of the AIIMS Trauma Centre told reporters.

“On his arrival at the Trauma Centre, there was no spontaneous breathing, no blood pressure, no pulse, no cardiac activity.”

Dr Gupta said there were “no major external injuries on his body… clinically we might say that he had a sudden cardiac death”.

The minister’s driver and secretary escaped unhurt.

Prime Minister Modi was among the first to mourn Mr Munde’s death.

“Extremely saddened and shocked by the demise of my friend and colleague Gopinath Munde. His demise is a major loss for the nation and the government,” Mr Modi tweeted.

He described Mr Munde as “a true mass leader” and said that “hailing from backward sections of society, he rose to great heights and tirelessly served people”.BBC