BENGALURU: A family’s Deepawali day visit to their native village on Thursday ended on a tragic note when a car ran over them. A man and his children aged 10 and 2 were killed in the accident while his wife suffered severe injuries. Two engineering students who were in the car too lost their lives. The incident took place at Bhadrapura bus stop on the busy Mangaluru-Bengaluru highway near Kudur on the outskirts of the city.
Police said the incident took place around 5.30pm. Sajan and Navaneeth, both resident of Bengaluru, along with their friends Adnan Abdul Rahim, Lokesh and Shubham were on their way to Savanadurga near Magadi for an outing. They were all engineering students. Rahim, Lokesh and Shubam were natives of Bihar.The students had hired a rental car and Shubam was driving.
Kemparaju, who works as a cook and lives in Hegganahalli near Peenya, was travelling on a motorbike with his wife Mamatha (31) and their chidlren Soumya (10) and Sanjay (2) to his native Muttugadahalli in Turuvekere for Deepawali. Kemparaju had bought food on the way and stopped at a bus shelter to feed his children. The family was sitting in the bus shelter when the car in which the students were travelling crashed into the bus shelter and ran over the family, killing Kemparaju, Soumya and Sanjay. Police said the car was being driven at 140 kmph at the time of the accident. After crashing into the bus stop, the car toppled into an open plot of land.
In the impact of the crash, Sajan (21) and Navaneeth (22) were thrown out of the car. The three others in the car sustained injuries. Police have arrested Shubam for reckless driving.
Mamatha sustained severe injuries and is undergoing treatment at Victoria Hospital.
Rangaswamy, nephew of Kemparaju, said that Kemparaju used to visit his village every week to oversee farming on his land. On Thursday, he took his family on the occasion of Deepawali.
Hotel owner asked family to stay back
Narasimhamurthy, a villager, told police that Kemparaju had bought food from a hotel. The hotel owner had in fact insisted that they have the food at the hotel itself. However, Mamatha said they would have their food on the way as they were getting late to reach the village.