Constable among 4 killed in accident

PUNE: Speeding on the Pune-Mumbai expressway claimed lives of four more persons, including a police constable of Mumbai police, in the early hours of Saturday when the car they were travelling in rammed into a container truck from the rear at Kusgaon near

Lonavla

.

The Lonavla (city) police said the deceased were constable Rajendra Vishnu Chavan (47) of Borivli in Mumbai, his wife Shakshi alias Sunita (42), and Shankar Marot Vanagule (33) and

Pooja Shankar Vanagule

(26), of Mahad in Raigad.

Police said Chavan was speeding on the Pune-bound central lane of the expressway. He lost control of the car and the vehicle veered off to the extreme left lane before crashing into the slow-moving container truck.

Almost the entire car went under the container. All the occupants were killed on the spot.

According to Lonavla (city) police, the car was heading towards Pune around 1am on Saturday when Chavan lost control over the vehicle and it rammed into the container.

The accident occurred near Valvan bridge in Kusgaon, about 55km from here.

Police said Chavan and his wife had gone to their native place in

Dapoli

for personal work. They were supposed to return to Mumbai from there.

Police said that prima facie it appears that Chavan had offered lift to the Vangules. It was not known why Chavan, instead of going to Mumbai, was heading towards Pune and where he wanted to go, said Lonavla city police station's sub-inspector Balaji Gaikwad.

He said Chavan's car had got stuck in the rear of the container truck. The truck driver stopped his vehicle at the spot and informed police.

Police teams rushed to the spot and summoned a crane to pull out the wreckage of the car. The bodies were taken out and shifted to a private hospital in Lonavla.

Superintendent of police Amol Tambe of Highway Safety Patrol (HSP) visited the spot for inspection.

In another accident, three youths from Mumbai suffered minor injuries when their car veered off the Pune Mumbai expressway after its front tyre burst near

Urse

toll post. They were also coming towards Pune, police said.

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