A woman of Indian-descent was left to die in a car by the driver who left her behind after the vehicle caught fire in New York, according to media reports.
Firefighters found the charred body of 25-year-old Harleen Grewal early Friday morning, the New York Daily News reported.
The driver of the car, Saeed Ahmad, 23, whom the daily described as "heartless", flagged down a taxi near the scene of the incident to go to a hospital.
WABC TV broadcast a chilling video showing Ahmad stopping the taxi saying, "Can I get a ride?" while the vehicle was in flames.
The police caught him at the hospital, where he was being treated for burns to his arms and legs, and charged him with homicide and several other offences relating to the incident.
His driving licence had been suspended prior to the accident making it illegal for him to drive.
Police sources told the New York Daily News that Ahmad had a few drinks before the crash but a blood test showed he was not legally drunk.
He was seen weaving in and out of traffic before his 2007 Infiniti G35 car hit the road divider and caught fire, according to witnesses.
Ahmad told the police that he was dating Grewal, the daughter of Punjabi immigrants.
Ahmad's brother, Waheed, claimed that he had tried to rescue Grewal.
Grewal’s boyfriend, Karan Singh Dhillon, was wracked with grief over her death. "Maybe he did try to help her, maybe he didn't, but the fact is we lost an angel," he said. "And it's, you know, a tragic way of losing someone you love."
"She would be positive to everyone, sometimes for no reason at all," Dhillon said. "Like this guy, I don't know if she trusted him, you know? You know she trusted someone to drop her home, or whatever the case was."
"I met him maybe once or twice," Dhillon said. "I knew that he was part of her circle."
"When I first saw it, I said, man, this guy has no heart, guy has no soul," Dhillon said. "Guy had no heart. But then I put myself in his situation, and I would scared out of my life. Twenty-three or 24-year-old young man, who just saw his best friend or friend just die over there. Maybe he tried to help her, maybe he didn't. You know, no one knows the real story."
But why would Ahmed tell police she was his date?
"People probably think she was cheating on me or this and that," Dhillon said. "No, there's nothing like that going on."
Dhillon thinks he was worried about the charges he was facing.
"If I was in his position and someone told me to say that, or maybe it popped up in my head to get more sympathy, maybe I would do that too," he said.
