Three youths on way to funeral killed in ghastly accident

Three men driving to Kunigal for a funeral were killed in a ghastly accident on the northern outskirts of Bengaluru on Thursday, police said. A fourth member of the group suffered extensive injuries but is out of danger.

The crash in the Nelamangala-Kunigal section of the Bengaluru-Mangaluru national highway disrupted traffic for almost two hours as police struggled to retrieve the bodies out of the car that met with the accident. Two days ago, a pile-up on the same road had left four people injured and three vehicles damaged.

Purushottam, Chandru, both 22, and Naveen, 21, left their homes in Manjunath Nagar in the morning. They were headed to Kunigal to attend the funeral of one of their friends' grandmother. Purushottam was at the wheel and was said to be speeding.

Around 10.30 am, he lost control of the car and rammed it into an oncoming container truck on the opposite lane of the highway. The crash was so powerful that the car got trapped into the front of the truck. Two of the youths died on the spot while the third member later succumbed to injures at a hospital. Aditya, 19, a native of Tiptur, Tumakuru district, who was travelling with the group, suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries, said an officer from Nelamangala traffic police.

The truck driver, Venugopal, was transporting LPG cylinders from Yediyur, Tumakuru district, to Bengaluru.

Police have registered a case and are carrying out further investigations.