Four of a family killed in accident in Virudhunagar district

MADURAI: Four people of a family from Bengaluru were killed in a road accident that took place near Aruppukkottai in Virudhunagar district on Sunday. The family members were on their way to Tiruchendur when they met with the accident. One more was injured in the accident, who was shifted to a nearby hospital.
The accident took place at Ramanujapuram in Aruppukkottai taluk police limit at around 3 pm, where the sports utility vehicle in which seven people were travelling hit the centre median and overturned.It came to a stop after hitting a steel barricade on the roadside erected for safety purpose. Four people died on the spot while three survived. On being alerted, a police team rushed to the spot and shifted the bodies to government hospital for postmortem.
The deceased were identified as Kannanvel, 55, from Govindaraj Nagar in Bengaluru, his wife Bindhu, 45, his father Kamalakannan, 75 and his mother Brahmakumari, 70. Three more people, Kannanvel’s daughter Vaishnavi, his elder brother’s son Hemanth and Vaishnavi’s friend Avinash were also travelling in the vehicle. While Hemanth and Avinash escaped without injuries, Vaishnavi was injured and was taken to a hospital.
A case was registered with Aruppukkottai taluk police station. According to the police, Kannanvel was driving the vehicle. Police said that they started from Bengaluru on Saturday and visited Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai before they headed towards Tiruchendur. Police suspected that Kannanvel might have dozed off while driving, resulting in the accident. Further probe was underway.
In another incident, two more people including a government teacher were killed in a road accident that took place near Srivilliputhur in Virudhunagar district. The accident took place when a speeding private bus hit a bike at M Pudupatti village. Marimuthu, the biker, died on the spot. Thilagamatha from Araichipatti village, who was travelling in the bus also died on the spot. She was returning home after attending an election related training programme, which took place in a private university in Krishnankovil on Sunday.