Seven youths dead in road accident

Mumbai: Seven youngsters from Vile Parle lost their lives after their SUV rammed into a tree on the old Mumbai-Goa highway on Wednesday morning. The youth had left at 1 am on Wednesday and were on their way to Goa after winning a cricket match a few days ago.

The sole survivor of the mishap is critical. The police suspect the accident occurred, at around 7.40 am, because its driver was allegedly speeding and lost control of the vehicle, ramming into a tree.

According to officials the deceased have been identified as Prashant Gurav (31), Sachin Sawant (32), Mayur Belnekar (25), Kedar Todkar (23), Vaibhav Manve (32), Nihal Kotian (21) and Akshay Kerkar. The sole survivor of the accident is Abhishek Kambli (21). The survivor and all the seven deceased were residents of Shivaji Nagar in Vile Parle East and were childhood friends.

According to the police, the incident occurred at about 7.40 am near Khanu village in Ratnagiri district on Wednesday. “We suspect that the driver was speeding and lost control of the vehicle and turned turtle thrice eventually hitting a tree which led to the roof of the car caving in. Seven passengers died on the spot and one survived who was rushed to a local hospital,” said Mr Prakash Yadav, Assistant Police Inspector, State Highway police. He added that while no liquor bottles were found from the vehicle they were awaiting the post mortem results.

Meanwhile, the Shivaji Nagar co-op society in Vile Parle east is in shock. All the youngsters were extremely popular in the area and would regularly organise cultural festivals and celebrate birthdays in a grand fashion.

“All of them had formed the Laksh Foundation in 2012 which would organise trips to Shirdi at nominal rates for poor people and senior citizens.” said Anand Pathak, a friend of deceased. He added that the vehicle belonged to Kerkar’s elder brother and Gurav was at the wheel.

Eight more youngsters and residents of the same area were also supposed to be a part of the group that left for Goa last night.

But they cancelled their plan last minute due to a cash crunch and no availability of leave from office. The accident victims had initially booked a tempo traveller but later borrowed a friend’s vehicle.

The family of all the deceased have not been informed about the incident and the residents said they would do so only when the bodies were brought from Ratnagiri.