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Shock, grief as victims’ families come to terms with the tragedy
The deceased were identified as Karuna Sagar (28), DMK MLA Y Prakash’s son, his fiancé Bindhu(28), Ishita(21), Dhanusha(21), Akshay Goyal(23), Utsav( 22) and Rohit( 23).
Most of them received the news of the tragic accident early Tuesday morning and since then the families of the seven deceased are in a state of shock.
According to family members, they were not familiar with other occupants of the car.
The deceased were identified as Karuna Sagar (28), DMK MLA Y Prakash’s son, his fiancé Bindhu(28) Ishita(21), Dhanusha(21) Akshay Goyal(23) Utsav( 22) and Rohit( 23).
On Monday, Sagar had posted on his social media accounts about his arrival in Bengaluru in his Audi 3 series SUV that met with the tragic accident. Relatives and friends of Sagar said he had a craze for high-end cars and bikes. Sagar is a businessman and used to visit Bengaluru often.
According to police, Sagar came to Bengaluru on Monday to purchase medicines at around 5.30 pm and even carried out some business in the city. The family had called him for dinner at 9.30pm but he informed them that he won’t be coming and went ahead with his friends.
According to eyewitnesses, some occupants in the car were in their pyjamas. Based on this input, police suspect that the group had gone out for an unplanned joy ride at night when the accident took place at around 1.45 am.
The MLA was in Chennai when he learnt about the accident and left for Hosur, in Krishnagiri district. His elder brother Chandrappa came to St John’s Hospital here to receive the body after the post-mortem. “A big tragedy has befallen us. I am not in a position to say anything,” he told reporters.
Another victim of the accident, Bindhu was set to get married to Sagar, according to her father Chandrashekar. According to him, he didn’t know any occupants of the car, other than Sagar. “We knew that they were friends and they wanted to get married, but no official proposal was made so far. She had said she would only marry him, and we had agreed to it,” he said.
He said that his daughter had called him around 8 pm on Monday. “She finished her masters in the UK and was working in Bengaluru. She spoke with me last night around 8 pm. It was a normal call, she asked me if I had dinner. She was working from home that night. She didn’t mention about going on a drive,” he said.
Another occupant in the car, Rohit, had lost his parents 10 years ago and his uncle was taking care of him. Bharat Amrut, a cousin brother of the deceased, who had come to the police station said that they received information about the incident around 3 am.
“Police called me this morning and asked me to come to the police station. They didn’t initially tell me he died. They told me that there was an accident and Rohit is under treatment. As we were on our way to Bengaluru (from Hubli), we were told that he had passed away. Our family members had spoken to him but there was no conversation that he was going on a drive,” he said.
According to him, Rohit used to work in an online education platform and he had been living in Bengaluru for past one year. When asked if he knew other occupants in the car, the cousin said the family didn’t have any information about them. “We don’t know how he made contact with such highly influential people, like an MLA’s son,” he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
