Post midnight on Saturday, two cousins, both food delivery agents, talked on the phone discussing if they should end their gig for the day.

“We usually work till 2 am to get the day’s incentive. That day, it was well past 1.30 am and I decided to call it a day. My cousin said he would keep riding,” Shivam Kumar Bind (20) told The Indian Express. Little did Shivam know that 28-year-old Anand Raj Bind’s decision would prove fatal. Anand was mowed down by a Mercedes soon after, according to police.

The Zomato delivery partner succumbed to his injuries early Tuesday morning after a speeding Mercedes-Benz car rammed into his motorcycle from behind near the Sector 15 fire station in Faridabad in the early hours of Sunday.

Police said Anand was returning home after completing a delivery when the accident happened between 2 am and 2.15 am at the intersection towards Mathura Road.

The impact was severe: Anand’s motorcycle broke apart, with its parts scattered across several metres on the road, and he was flung 20-30 feet. He was lying in a pool of blood at the spot when Shivam found him, the complaint stated.

A passerby had informed Shivam from Anand’s phone. Shivam rushed to the spot and arranged a private vehicle to take his brother first to a private hospital in Faridabad, then a government one and finally to Max Hospital in Delhi, Shivam said, adding that some machines were not working at the government hospital.

The offending vehicle — a Mercedes-Benz CLA 200 — owned by a private firm in Delhi, was found abandoned about 100 metres from the accident site, with the tyres jammed, police said. The driver fled the scene and is still absconding, they said.

“We have issued a notice to the owner and asked for the driver’s details and to cooperate with the police in the probe. We have also added BNS Sections 106 (death by negligence to the FIR),” a police spokesperson said Thursday.

An FIR was initially registered on Monday evening against the unidentified driver under BNS for rash and negligent driving, acts endangering human lives, and mischief, officers said. Both the car and the two-wheeler have been impounded, they said.

Anand had shifted to Faridabad from his native place Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh four months ago, and had been working with Zomato since January. He lived in a rented accommodation at Bhatola village near Chandila Chowk with Shivam and another brother. His father is a farmer.

Shivam said Zomato has helped them with the insurance claim process at the hospital, and paid them to take Anand’s body to Mirzapur and for his last rites.

The family is shaken. The brothers plan to leave Faridabad soon.

“I cannot live there anymore, the place will remind me of him constantly,” a distraught Shivam added.