Canada road accident: 2 Indian students out of danger, 1 escaped unhurt

Two Indian students injured in an accident in Canada are out of danger and another had a lucky escape, India's envoy here has said in an update on the horrific road crash.

Five Indian students were killed in a road accident in Canada’s Ontario province on March 12. The accident between a passenger van and a tractor-trailer took place on Saturday on Highway 401 in the Quinte West city in Southern Ontario.

India's High Commissioner in Canada Ajay Bisaria, in an update on the accident, said that two of the injured persons are still in hospital while another student escaped unhurt.

Also Read | 5 Indian students killed in Canada road accident

"Update on a tragic accident in which 5 Indians were killed near Toronto on Sat: two injured still in hospital, mercifully out of danger. One other student in the van carrying 8 persons escaped unhurt. @IndiainToronto team is in touch with friends/family for all help. @MEAIndia," Bisaria tweeted on Monday.

Harpreet Singh, 24, Jaspinder Singh, 21, Karanpal Singh, 21, Mohit Chouhan, 23 and Pawan Kumar, 23 were pronounced dead at the scene.

They all studied in the Montreal or Greater Toronto areas, GlobalNews reported.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Monday mourned the death of the five Indian students and said the Indian mission in Toronto will provide all necessary support and assistance.

A spokesman from Canada College, a Montreal school that caters to international students, said at least three of those who died and one of two injured survivors studied at the school.

John David Couturier said the school administration is devastated by the loss and is scrambling to support students and arrange to send the victims’ bodies back to India, the report said.

“We’re all in a state of shock,” the spokesman said.

“I can only imagine the families in India, they’re so far away, and now there are two students in the hospital that don’t have their families here.”

Couturier said most of the victims associated with the school had been studying business administration.

Dr. Shivendra Dwivedi, who heads an organisation called Canada India Global Forum, said the community is shaken by the loss.

“We’re very sad with this tragedy, and we feel very, very bad for the families and the students that lost their lives,” he said. “It’s a horrible tragedy, and I think the community is grieving,”

Dwivedi said his group was mobilising resources to provide grief counselling for the victims’ friends in Canada.

While he did not know the victims personally, he said many Indian students who come to Canada to attend private colleges in the hopes of gaining permanent residency are young and far from their support systems.

“They’re doing it because they want a chance to come to Canada. Really hard-working, very dedicated students trying to make a better life for themselves,” he said.

He said his group is also working with officials in Toronto and Ottawa to ensure the wishes of the families in India are carried out.

The passenger van with eight people aboard was travelling west on Highway 401 Saturday morning when there was a collision with a tractor-trailer at around 3:45 a.m. near Quinte West, Ont., Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) said.

OPP spokeswoman Maggie Pickett said on Monday that police believe the van was stopped by the side of the highway when the crash occurred. The investigation into the crash is continuing, and no charges have been laid.

One passenger who had exited the van, as well as the tractor-trailer driver, were uninjured, Pickett said, while two of the van’s occupants were taken to hospital in serious condition.

It’s unclear where the students were heading, but Couturier said it’s common for Canada College students to travel frequently between Quebec and Ontario because the week’s classes are condensed over two or three days.

He said about 70 per cent of the school’s 2,500 students are from India, and they tend to form close bonds as they work their way toward graduating and obtaining permanent residence.

“Many of them are from Montreal, some of them are from Belleville, Brampton, Ontario,” he said. “And so they’ll come for the weekend classes and stay at a friend’s house or whatever. It’s really a community, you know?”

Couturier said Canada College has offered to repatriate the bodies to India and pay the cost of its students’ funerals, the report added.

Every year, thousands of Indian students visit Canada for higher education.

The number of Indian students attending Canadian universities rose from 76,075 in 2016 to 1,72,625 in 2018, an increase of 127 per cent, according to a report published last year quoting the Canadian Bureau for International Education.

The road accident is the second tragic incident involving Indian nationals in Canada in three months.

In January, four Indians, including an infant, were found dead near the Canada-US border in Manitoba. According to Canadian authorities, the family from Gujarat died due to exposure to extreme cold.

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