Three engineers killed in Khurda accident

BHUBANESWAR: Three engineers from the irrigation department were charred to death when the car they were travelling in caught fire after it was hit by two trucks in Khurda district on Saturday. Police said the accident took place on NH-16 near Malipada, 45 km from here, around 3.30 am. The dead were identified as Samir Das, Himanshu Panigrahi and Dilip Rath, all natives of Nilakantha Nagar in Berhampur. They were returning to Berhampur after attending a wedding.Police added that the car was hit by a dumper and a truck within a gap of few seconds. The car went up in flames immediately after the accident, leaving no time for the trio to escape. Investigation is on to find out how the car caught fire.One of the deceased was at the wheels. Prima facie, police suspect that the car caught fire because the fuel tank burst. "There was nobody near the site at the time of the accident. We checked the car's fuel tank and found it mangled," said a police official after he visited the spot. A cell phone belonging to one of the deceased has been found. Khurda superintendent of police Dilip Kumar Das said, "The front cabin of the truck that hit the car has also been damaged. However, nobody was hurt."He said police and fire brigade personnel reached the spot after villagers informed them about the incident. "We extricated the bodies from the vehicle. After the postmortem, the bodies were handed over to the deceased's relatives," he said. The truck and dumper drivers have been detained, he added.