Bihar: 5 friends drown in Araria car accident

PATNA: Five friends drowned after the car in which they were travelling fell into a roadside water body near village Dala under Palasi police station area in Araria district on early Tuesday morning. They worked at a private hospital in Purnia.
Palasi police station SHO Shivpujan Kumar said the deceased were identified as Sunil Kumar Mandal (26), Kalanand Mandal (25), Dhananjay Kumar Sah (28), Sunil Kumar Kardar (35) and Naveen Kumar Sah (35).He said Sunil and Kalanand belonged to Majhwara in ward number 13, Dhananjay to Chauri in ward number 3, Sunil to Gerari Mundmala and Naveen to Chikni, all in Araria district. He said Dhananjay was the car owner.
The SHO said they were returning from a fair organised at Gerari Mundmala village on Anant Chaturdashi when the accident took place at around 4am. “It seems the car was at a high speed and the driver lost control of the steering wheels,” he said.
He said there was no visible injury marks on their bodies. “It seems they were unable to escape out of the car and got drowned in the water. The car had turned turtle,” he said.
The SHO said a few villagers spotted the four wheels of the car in the water at around 5am and informed the police. The bodies were taken out of the car. A crane was used to pull the car out of the water,” he said.
Kumar said the bodies were handed over to their respective family members after postmortem. “The DM and Sadar SDPO also visited the hospital. The officials were doing paper works for the ex gratia payment of Rs4 lakh to the next of the kin of each deceased,” he said.