BENGALURU: Two friends were killed on the spot when their speeding car crashed into a parked cement mixer lorry on the NH-7 highway near Kempegowda International Airport Road, in the early hours of Sunday.
Police blame the mishap on the negligence of the lorry driver, who had not switched on the hazard lights in his lorry while parked by the side of the highway. The police also said that the driver was currently absconding.The deceased are Rakesh Kumar Senthil (29), an MBA graduate working as an accountant in a private firm in Electronics City, and Nitish Kumar Mishra (29), a hotel employee in Mathikere. The duo hailed from Madhya Pradesh, and were residing at Jaladarshini Layout on BEL Road.
A senior police officer said the incident occurred at around 4.30 am when the duo was returning to Bengaluru from a weekend trip to Nandi Hills. While passing through Devanahalli, Senthil, who was driving the car, did not notice the parked lorry and crashed into it from the rear-end.The impact of the crash was such that it instantly crushed Senthil and Mishra to death.
Ranadheer Reddy, a member of the NHAI patrolling unit, told the police that a passing car driver who had witnessed the mishap passed on information about the accident to them, who in turn alerted the Devanahalli police. Reddy said, “The impact was such the the car had gone under the cement mixer lorry and the upper torsos of the duo were completely crushed. Preliminary inspection of the spot revealed that passing motorists were unable to notice the parked lorry in the dark as the vehicle’s hazard lights had not been turned on to alert the passing motorists. The vehicle also had no reflectors on its body.”
Police looked for the driver of the cement mixer lorry, but were unable to find him for hours. A complaint has been registered against the lorry driver and the lorry seized by the police.The police said it was likely that the lorry driver ran away on learning about the accident. “We have gathered information about the driver and he will be nabbed soon. The post-mortem would be conducted on Monday once the respective families of the deceased arrived in the city,” the police officer added.