The victim, Fakira Sukdu Tadvi (45), was working as a driver of the control room van attached to the Sahapur police station.
At around 3.30 AM, he spotted a vegetable-laden tempo overturned on a road at Sonale village between Sahapur and Bhiwandi talukas of Thane district. Tadvi got down from his van to help occupants of the tempo.
At the same time, a trailer truck coming from behind hit the tempo crushing Tadvi, Bhiwandi taluka police station inspector Dhananji Kshirsagar said.
The body was shifted to a government hospital for postmortem and will be later taken to his hometown in Jalgaon for the last rites.
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Senior police officials from Thane went to the hospital to pay their respects to Tadvi who died on duty.
Meanwhile, the Bhiwandi taluka police registered a case of 304-A (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the IPC and other relevant sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.
A search was on for the truck driver who fled from the spot after the accident, police added.