Mumbai: Veteran actor Shabana Azmi was seriously injured after the car in which she was travelling met with an accident on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on Saturday afternoon. Her husband Javed Akhtar, who was following her in another car, immediately rushed Azmi to the nearby MGM hospital in Navi Mumbai. After initial treatment, she was reportedly shifted to the Kokilaben hospital in Andheri by evening. She sustained neck and face injuries in the mishap, police said.
According to police, Azmi and her husband were travelling to their farmhouse in Khandala on Saturday. Azmi was in a Tata Safari Storme, while her Akhtar was in another car, with others.
"The accident took place around 3.30pm near Ambivaligaon, two kilometres before Khalapur, when her car rear-ended a truck," said Subhash Pujari, Assistant Police Inspector (API) of the highway safety patrol, Palaspe unit.
According to other police officers, Azmi's car was travelling in the second lane and in order to overtake the vehicle ahead of theirs, her driver drove into the third lane and in the process, collided with the truck ahead. Azmi, who was in the backseat of the SUV, suffered serious injuries to her neck, eyes and nose. However, her driver Amlesh Kamat escaped with minor injuries.
The accident's impact was such that the front passenger side of the SUV, the radiator and the bonnet of the car were wrecked.
The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is the country's first six-lane concrete, access-controlled highway. The 94.5km stretch connects Mumbai and Pune, halving the travel time between the two cities to just two hours, as opposed to four hours on the older route. Over the years, numerous accidents have occurred on the expressway, as it is a high-speed stretch.
Azmi was awarded the Padma Shri in 1998 and has received the National Film Award five times. She is known for her work in several critically-acclaimed movies like Ankur, Nishant, Shaque, Arth and Mandi.
