5 of family killed in accident in Bengaluru

Tragedy on KIA road

Five people from a family, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed after a speeding ambulance jumped the median and collided with their car near Kogilu Cross on the international airport road on Monday morning.

The deceased have been identified as Deepankar Dey (42), a multimedia analyst, his wife Swagatha Chowdhary (42), a teacher at the Jain Heritage School in Hebbal, their son Dhruv Dey (14), a student at Jain Heritage School, Sujaya Manoj (45), sister of Swagatha, and their mother Jayathi (65).

The deceased women hailed from Chittaranjan in West Bengal while Deepankar Dey is from Durgapur in West Bengal. All except Sujaya Manoj were residents of RT Nagar.

The incident occurred in the wee hours of Monday when the family members had gone to see off Sujaya, who was flying back to Chennai, at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA).

“Sujaya had come from Chennai a week ago to visit her ailing mother Jayathi who had been diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. She was returning to Chennai, where she stays with her husband Manoj,” Raghu, brother of Manoj, told DH.

Sujaya’s flight was scheduled for Sunday night, but due to stormy weather, it was rescheduled to 6.25 am on Monday.

After the flight was rescheduled, the family decided to return to their home in RT Nagar and return to the airport early Monday morning.

Deepankar was driving the Wagon-R (KA-04-ML-5002) from the airport towards RT Nagar. Around 1.30 am, when the car reached near the Venkatala bus stop at Kogilu Cross, a speeding 108 ambulance jumped the median, entered the opposite lane and collided with the car.

The impact of the collision was such that the car was wrecked beyond recognition while the front portion of the ambulance (KA-51-G5164) was damaged.

Four members in the car, including three women, were killed instantly while Dhruv died on the way to hospital, the police said. The bodies were later shifted to MS Ramaiah Hospital’s morgue for postmortem after which they were handed over to family members.

Ambulance driver Channabasappa, who also sustained injuries, was admitted to Victoria Hospital. The police are waiting for him to recover to arrest him. The Yelahanka Traffic Police have registered a case of accidental death caused by rash and negligent driving and have booked Channabasappa under IPC section 304-A among others. Further investigations are underway.