Gauravdeep Narang: Man raises money for brother killed in Point Cook crash

A 27-year-old Point Cook man was excited to launch his career as a chef when he was hit and killed by a drunk driver on their way home from a COVID-19 party. The man’s family is now trying to pick up the pieces.

Gauravdeep Narang, 27, was working as an Uber Eats delivery driver when he was hit and killed by a drunk driver in Point Cook. Picture: supplied

The distraught family of a Point Cook man hit and killed by a drunk driver is raising money to pay off his study debt and take his ashes home.

Indian national Gauravdeep Narang, 27, was working as an Uber Eats driver on September 5 when his car was struck from behind while stopped at traffic lights at the intersection of Palmers Rd and The Strand about 10.55pm.

Gauravdeep’s brother, Hardip, told the Leader his brother and the other driver, who was drunk and speeding home from an illegal party in breach of Melbourne’s virus curfew, were killed instantly.

Now, he said he wanted to raise money to pay off his brother’s $40,000 study debt, which his brother had only just started to repay after qualifying as a chef in March and taking up work as a delivery driver during the pandemic.

Mr Narang said he also wanted to take his brother’s ashes home so he and his parents, including his sick mother who is partially paralysed, could grieve.

“My mother had a stroke when she found out and she is in intensive care,” Mr Narang said.

“I was very close to my brother. He used to stay with me and we used to talk 10 to 12 times a day. He was a very quiet and shy person and he was never a rule breaker. For example if I took a grape from the supermarket he would scold me. He would say, ‘You’re a thief, I’m not going to walk with you’.

“Witnesses heard a really loud break and a bang … he passed away on the spot.

“This was an accident and it wasn’t even his fault. We don’t have life insurance for him because he was too young to die.”

Mr Narang, who works as a chef and has a young family, said he couldn’t afford to pay his brother’s debt on his own.

He also said his brother was their parents’ primary caregiver, which was common in their culture, and now it would fall to him to look after them in their old age.

Mr Narang said the TAC advised him they couldn’t help cover the cost of travelling to India because Gauravdeep’s funeral was not being held in Australia.

A GoFundMe page he started has so far raised more than $32,000 and Mr Narang said he was grateful for the community’s support during what was a tough time for all Victorians.

Mr Narang has also started a petition to change the TAC’s definition of dependants of a person killed in a road accident.

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