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Andrew Mwenda gave the following account of the aftermath of the Saturday morning accident, which claimed the life of his friend, Rajiv Ruparelia, son of businessman Sudhir Ruparelia.
Mwenda was one of the first people at the scene where Rajiv crashed his newly refurbished Nissan GT-R.
The deceased was driving to Munyonyo, where he planned to join his friend Jonathan Butera Bahizi for his wedding that took place today, Saturday.
Mwenda narrated how he broke the gutting news to Rajiv’s parents, Sudhir and Jyotsna Ruparelia, at their home at 4 am, in the following account:
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Rajiv was driving a Nissan GT-R, which is a sports car. I think it uses fuel akin to jet fuel.
He had not been to Uganda in so many weeks, so he did not know of the presence of those (concrete) barriers.
So he came at full speed at around 2:15 am and hit the barriers at very high speed.
The car overturned, flew upside down, and crashed down in a ball of fire.
The car was completely burnt, and his body was burnt beyond recognition.
Because the accident happened near Munyonyo, his friend Jonathan Butera Bahizi, whose wedding is today, was the first person on site.
The second person to arrive was his friend Ronnie, and later, Bongo (Sudhir’s handler).
Bongo called me. When we arrived, we organised an ambulance and a doctor.
Breaking the news
To break the news to Dr Sudhir, who has heart problems and high blood pressure, we were worried that we could cause more problems.
From the scene, Bongo and I went to Sudhir’s bedroom, and we entered and broke the news to him. Jyotsna was already praying in another room, so we went there too and informed her. This was a few minutes past 4 am.
Rajiv's last two 24 hours
The deceased had arrived back in Uganda on Wednesday. On Thursday, he had lunch with his dad at the office, and last night, he had dinner with his mother.
He wanted them to join him for an event, but they were tired, so he hung out with his friends and went to the club.
From there, he went home, picked up his car to go and sleep in Munyonyo so that he could accompany his friend to the church wedding. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
Killed by passion
Rajiv had a driver. But he was also a motor rally driver, and the car he was driving was one of the fastest in the world.
When you are a sports driver, driving a car like that in the night when there are no other cars on the road… he was certainly doing his thing.
The car had just been fully refurbished, so he was going at a very fast speed; I suspect maybe above 200km/h.
That is why when he hit the concrete barriers, he scattered them and the car disintegrated.