Five of family from Chennai die in road accident near Veppur

CUDDALORE: A family of five, including two children, died when a car they were travelling was crushed between two trucks on the Trichy-Chennai National Highway near Veppur in Cuddalore district in the early hours of Tuesday.

The deceased were identified as V Vijaya Veeraraghavan, 41, a software engineer working in a private firm in Chennai, his wife V Vatchala, 37, also a software engineer, his two sons, V Vishnu, 10, and V Athirith, 8, and his mother V Vasanthalakshmi, 65.

Police said Vijaya Veeraraghavan, his wife, two sons and mother left Chennai in his car on December 29 to visit a temple in Kerala to celebrate the New Year. They were returning to Chennai on Tuesday morning after the New Year prayers when the accident occurred. Veeraraghavan, who was behind the wheels, slowed the car due to a traffic jam and was moving slowly behind a truck on the Trichy-Chennai National Highway at Iyyanarpalayam near Veppur around 3am on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a truck laden with sand from Telangana, proceeding in the same direction, lost control and rammed the car from behind. The impact was so intense that the car was completely crushed between the trucks in the front and behind. The entire top half of the car was ripped off in the impact and all the five in the car died instantly. The truck rammed an SUV in the front of it.

Teams from Veppur police station, highway patrol and fire and rescue services personnel reached the spot and recovered the bodies from the mangled remains of the car and sent them to Government Villupuram Medical College and Hospital for postmortem examination.

The Veppur police registered a case against the truck driver identified as R Harikrishnan, 22 from Telangana under sections 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way) and 304 (ii) (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code and arrested him following a complaint from Veeraraghavan's brother-in-law N Vijay, 41, of Madipakkam in Chennai. He was remanded in judicial custody.


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