Navratri viewing youths killed in accident

Around 2 a.m. Wednesday, the Bolero vehicle in which the youngsters were travelling lost control and rammed headlong into a trailer coming in the opposite lane, investigating officer V.B. Jadhav of Valiv Police Station said.

"The young boys were moving around in their vehicle from village to village since last night, to view the final navratri celebrations. While driving past Nagle village, the driver of the vehicle suddenly lost control, climbed onto a divider and rammed into an oncoming trailer in the opposite lane," Jadhav told IANS.

The police officer said that the young men did not appear to be inebriated, and they were not seen racing other vehicles. He said that it did not appear like they were harassing girls either, as often happens during navratri celebrations.

The deceased youth were identified as: Ashish Tangde, 19, the owner of the vehicle who was behind the wheel at the time of the accident, and his friends Devendra Tangde, 19, Yajnesh Javlikar, 19, Vaibhav Raikar 25, Kundan Raikar, 27 and Kaushik Patil, 17.

A severely injured Tejas Javlikar, 16, was rushed to a local hospital where his condition is reported to be stable.

At Payegaon village, where the young men lived, Dussehra, the festival of joy, became an occasion of mourning. The village is around 10 km from Bhiwandi in Thane district, some 50 km northeast of Mumbai.