Hema Malini 'fine', driver held for child's death

Film actor and BJP MP Hema Malini, injured in a car crash in Rajasthan that killed a child, is doing "fine", doctors said on Friday, even as police arrested her driver for rash driving.

Hema Malini was injured near Dausa, over 50 km from here, when her car rammed into another car coming from the opposite direction, leaving a five-year-old child in that vehicle dead.

"She is fine and conscious. She is on liquid diet now," said Prateem Tamboli of Fortis Escorts Hospital here where she was admitted after the Thursday night accident.

"She is presently under our post operative intensive care unit," a hospital statement said. If her health continues to show improvement, she may be discharged on Friday, Tamboli said.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje visited her at the hospital on Friday.

Earlier, Hema Malini's car driver, Mahesh Thakur, was arrested on charges of rash driving and causing death by negligence besides other offences, police said.

"We have arrested the driver, a resident of Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh," a police officer at Dausa told IANS over phone.

Besides the child who was killed, four other occupants in the other car were admitted in a government hospital here.

Their condition was "normal", said a doctor of the SMS Hospital here where they were referred to late Thursday night.

The Fortis Hospital said Hema Malini, after she was brought at around 9.35 p.m., underwent urgent detailed investigations, including X-Ray and CT scan.

"It was confirmed she had laceration in paranasal area and on the forehead near the right eyebrow," a hospital statement said.

"A surgery of debridement and repair of lacerated wounds surgery was done post midnight. The two-hour surgery was done under general anaesthesia."

Meanwhile, her daughter Esha Deol and son-in-law Bharat Takhtani reached the Fortis hospital.

Her younger daughter Ahana, who gave birth to a baby boy in June, won't be able to visit her mother, said Hema Malini's spokesperson.