WARDHA: Seven MBBS students, including the son of an MLA, were killed in Wardha district of Maharashtra when the car they were travelling in fell off a bridge, police said on Tuesday.
An official said all the seven, who hailed from four states, including Maharashtra, died on the spot in the accident which took place around 11.30 pm on Monday near Selsura village in Wardha district, 77km away from Nagpur, in east Maharashtra.
One of them, Avishkar Rahangdale, was the son of Tirora (Gondia district) BJP MLA Vijay Rahangdale.
He was a first-year MBBS student of the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College at Sawangi (Meghe) in Wardha.
Police said the SUV was being driven by one of the students and all the victims were returning from neighbouring Yavatmal district after celebrating the birthday of a student.
Due to the impact of the crash, the SUV was reduced to pulp.
All the deceased were students of the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, OSD of the Datta Meghe Institute of Medical Sciences Dr Abhyuday Meghe told PTI.
"One of the deceased students was a medical intern. Of the rest six, two each were studying in the final year, third year and first year," he said.
The other six deceased were identified by the police as Niraj Chauhan, who hailed from Daudpur in Gorakhpur, Pratyush Singh, Shubham Jaiswal from Chandauli (Uttar Pradesh), Vivek Nandan and Pawan Shakti (both from Gaya in Bihar), and Niteesh Kumar Singh from Belapur in Odisha.
Police officer Sawangi Babasaheb Thorat informed that the ill-fated SUV belonged to Niteesh Singh, the medical intern who was also driving the car.
Police reached the accident spot around midnight, he said, adding the victims were returning from Yavatmal after celebrating the birthday of one of the deceased, Pawan Shakti.
Thorat said the cause of the accident was being investigated.
Meanwhile, the body of Avishkar Rahangdale was handed over to his family.
The other bodies were handed over to the college authorities as family members of the deceased, who hailed from different states, were yet to reach Wardha to collect them.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray expressed grief over the loss of lives in the accident.
"The passing away of such promising youths is very unfortunate and a big loss to their families," said the CM in his condolence message.