A walk in the neighborhood turns deadly.
An eight-month-old child of an Indian couple in Queens, New York, Navraj Raju, was crushed to death in a stroller by a white van which backed out suddenly from a driveway, three blocks from home.
The tragedy happened when the mother of the victim, Daljit Kaur, took the toddler for a walk Friday morning, and stopped and bent down to adjust the baby’s blanket, reported the New York Daily News.
Without warning, a white van rolled backwards toward Kaur and Navraj.
“Stop the car!” Kaur screamed about 10:15 a.m., according to witness Ahmad Ali. “Stop! Stop!”
Driver Armando Rodriguez, 44, backed out of a driveway and crushed the baby beneath a rear tire. The boy’s helpless mom wept, as a carton of just-purchased eggs lay on the ground next to the damaged stroller.
Rodriguez, father to his own 5-year-old daughter, started sobbing as he stood outside the van waiting for police and paramedics to arrive. Some witnesses said he wasn’t looking. Others said he simply didn’t see Kaur and her son.
He was charged with driving without a license. Police said charges could be elevated after authorities complete their investigation, the News reported.
The devastated parents, both 34, returned to their home — just three blocks from the tragic scene on Astoria Blvd. — around 6 p.m.
“He’s too cute,” said the boy’s dad, Karan Deep Raju, staring at a photo of his son. Raju said his wife was “in shock.” The mom, wailing as her husband helped her from a car, was inconsolable.
The dad, a truck driver, was about three hours away in Pennsylvania when the baby was killed. He was expecting to see his son for the first time in two weeks.
“If he doesn’t have a license, then why was he driving?” Raju asked. “They have a law … Now they have to punish him.”
Friends and relatives said the couple moved from India to the United States six years ago. They’ve been living in East Elmhurst for about a year.
“It’s too much,” said Rani Bedi, the dead child’s great aunt, before breaking down in tears. “It’s very hard. I feel very bad right now.”
Five bystanders rushed the van and yanked the infant from beneath the vehicle in a frantic but ultimately futile effort to save Navraj’s life.
“One guy is touching the baby trying to see if he’s crying — but he’s not moving,” Ali said. “The mother is crying because the baby is dead.”
Ali said the inattentive driver was to blame.
“The guy is not looking,” recounted Ali, 26, a clerk at a nearby Shell gas station.
Pedro Bourdier, a longtime friend of the driver, said Rodriguez came to the U.S. from Mexico. While he works mostly as a mechanic, Rodriguez collects and sells scrap metal on the side.
Navraj’s death came one day after the city announced a Vision Zero crackdown on distracted drivers — like people chatting on their cell phones or texting while behind the wheel.
The NYPD’s top transportation cop, Chief Thomas Chan, warned motorists Thursday to slow down and double check before making turns or other maneuvers.
Citywide, police say there have been 114 pedestrians killed by cars through Thursday — up from 97 during the same time period last year. That’s a spike of about 16%.