Four people, including a constable, died in an accident on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in the wee hours of Saturday, after the car they were travelling in crashed into a container truck from the back
The spot at which a gas tanker carrying LPG was hit by a tempo at the Khandala (Lonavala) exit on September 6, 2012
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Pune: Four people, including a constable, died in an accident on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in the wee hours of Saturday, after the car they were travelling in crashed into a container truck from the back. The crash happened at such high speed that the entire car disappeared under the back of the container.
The accident took place around 1 am near Welvan College, at Kusgaon near Lonavala. An accident case has been registered with the Lonavala City Police. The deceased have been identified as constable Rajendra Vishnu Chavan (47), his wife Sakshi aka Sunita Chavan (42), both residents of Borivli, Shankar Marot Vangule (33) and his wife Puja Vangule (26) both residents of Mahad, in Raigad district.
Khandala highway police sub-inspector Ajit Patil said, “As soon as we received the news, my team and I went to the spot and pulled the people out of the wreckage. We took them to the hospital, but were declared brought dead. No arrests have been made yet as we cannot say who was at fault, but we are investigating. The families of both couples said they did not know each other.”
According to the Lonavala (City) police, Chavan was driving the Santro car at high speed on the Pune-bound central lane of the expressway. The driver lost control of the car and the vehicle veered to the extreme left lane before crashing into the slow-moving container truck ahead of it.
“We have lodged an accidental death case and the bodies have been handed over to their relatives. Only after the RTO panchnama and further investigation can we tell the exact cause of the accident,” said Chandrakant Jadhav, inspector, Lonavala (City) police.