Eight engineering students in Tamil Nadu's Dindigul were killed after a car parked ‘illegally’ parked on the highway in Thrisshur district of Kerala, India, according to a report by the Indian news agency NDTV on Saturday.
The accident took place at about 11:40 p.m. on Friday night at Panambikunnu area of Kaipamangalam, which was hit by a lorry registered in Maharashtra while the vehicle carrying the students from Gurvayur to Kodungalur was heading for a smashing lorries.
According to preliminary investigation and FIR data, traffic was turned off by barricades in a part of the highway during the construction work, where the lorry was illegally parked on the right side of the highway in the area.
The police believe that the car was moving at an over speed and the driver did not realize the changing route of the traffic, which then hit the lorry directly behind the lorry.
Six students died on the spot in the accident, where two others were taken to a nearby hospital where doctors declared them dead.
The deceased were students of an engineering college in Dindigul, all of them heading towards Kodungalur through the NH-66 highway.
The police have confirmed the identity of the six, they are - Surya, Yuvasanjit, Vishwa, Johua, Santosh and Prasanna. The first four are from Dindigul and Santosh and Prasanna Madurai, and the identity of the two others has not yet been confirmed.
After the accident, local residents, firemen and rescue workers and police jointly rescued the bodies of the students from the twisted cars, and the bodies were later taken to the Thrissur Medical College morgue.
In this incident, a case has been filed against the lorry driver at Kaipamangalam police station for unintentional murder. The police said that the lorry driver is absconding since the accident.
Police contacted their families through student IDs received from the victims, adding that some families did not know that their children had gone to Kerala.
The police said that the post-mortem of the body will begin after the family members of the victims reach Thrissur Medical College.
