MUMBAI: Three students were killed and another was critically injured after the BMW they were travelling in crashed into a divider on Mumbai’s Coastal Road and plunged nearly 75 feet early Sunday morning.
According to the local police, the accident occurred around 5 am when the four students were travelling from Marine Drive towards Worli. The Mumbai Coastal Road is a 10.58 km high-speed freeway connecting Marine Drive in South Mumbai to the Worli end of the Bandra-Worli Sea Link.
The deceased have been identified as Sanay Gujjar (21), who was at the driving seat; Aditya Jakasania (19); Dhairya Sheth (17); and the injured student, Aditya Oswal (23), who is undergoing treatment at BMC-run Nair Hospital and is stated to be critical. He has been in the trauma ward of the hospital. The BMW car belonged to Gujjar’s family.
The car, registered in Gujarat, lost control near Lotus Jetty opposite Lala Lajpatrai College and crashed into the ongoing work area of an L&T parking site, an official from the Tardeo police station said.
The crash comes weeks after Mumbai Police registered cases against several supercars, including a BMW M2 and BMW Z4, over alleged racing in the Coastal Road tunnel.
Gujjar, Oswal, and Sheth were BBA students at a management college, NMIMS, in Juhu, Mumbai. These students were from Ahmedabad in Gujarat, and they were staying in a paying guest accommodation in Mumbai. Gujjar, a native of Ahmedabad, was staying in Mumbai as a paying guest.
Prima facie, police suspect that the car was being driven at a high speed when Gujjar lost control of the vehicle. The speeding car crashed through the bridge railing and fell off the elevated road. The car first hit the outer wall of the Coastal Road before crashing down nearly 75 feet. The car was completely mangled.
After this incident, the relatives of these deceased students rushed to the spot immediately. Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding the crash, including the vehicle’s speed and what caused the driver to lose control. Earlier, on July 15, a car caught fire inside the Coastal Road tunnel. No casualties were reported in the incident.
