Loaded truck topples onto car on Jaipur highway, four killed

Gurugram: Four people, three of them software engineers employed by a multinational company in Noida, were killed in the early hours of Tuesday when a fully loaded truck fell onto its side, crushing their vehicle in a freak accident that took place on the busy National Highway 48.

The victims were part of a group of five friends in their early twenties who were returning from a weekend trip to Udaipur. Among the dead was the driver of the car, while two of the friends survived the crash.

The accident occurred when a truck heading from Gurugram to Jaipur careened off the road and crashed through the median, eventually coming to a rest when it toppled over to its side on to the victims’ Toyota Innova, police said.

“The driver may have dozed off and might have steered the truck suddenly to avoid a collision and climbed on to the divider. But the vehicle jumped over it, and reached the opposite lane, toppling on to the Innova and a portion of another car behind it,” said a senior police officer, asking not to be named.

The driver of the second car escaped unhurt while the driver of the truck fled from the spot.

Ajay Malik, station house officer of Bilaspur police station, said a team had been sent to Jaipur to trace the truck driver and bring him back to Gurugram.

“He managed to escape from the spot after the accident. Once arrested, it will become clear if he slept while driving or if the brakes failed,” he said.

Police identified the dead as Muskan Tewari, 22, Adarsh Kumar, 23, Kumara Pujit, 23, and the driver of the vehicle, Deepak Singh, 35.

The survivors were identified as 23-year-old Prerna Sultania and 24-year-old Jasnoor Singh. All of the occupants are residents of Noida.

The driver was the lone breadwinner of the family, police said, adding that he leaves behind a wife and a three-year-old child. The three others worked at Adobe.

None of the Innova’s occupants who were seated on the right side of the car survived. Kumar and Pujit, both of whom died, were in the middle row.

Malik said that Jasnoor Singh was sitting beside the driver and was pulled out easily. Sultania, however, was pinned down between the roof and the floor, and could only be rescued after four cranes were brought in to extricate the vehicle from under the truck. Sultania suffered a fracture in her left leg, Malik said.

“Take me out. I am suffocating… These were the two lines she kept repeating while trapped. We were worried since she was becoming incoherent and we were trying to keep her calm and conscious. We informed her that cranes were about to reach the spot and would pull her out,” Malik said, adding that residents from nearby villages greatly helped the rescue efforts.

Deepak Singh’s family lives in Noida. Of the rest, Tewari’s family home is in Kolkata, and Kumar’s in Meerut. Details about Pujit’s family were not immediately available.

Police officials said they had reached out to the families of the deceased and avoided telling them about their fate until they reached Gurugram.

A relative of Kumar’s, who lives in Gurugram, said the family was reeling with shock and disbelief since the 23-year-old had only recently relocated to Noida when he joined Adobe, having worked in Bengaluru before that.

“Adarsh (Kumar)’s father woke up at 3am and rang on his mobile phone to know where he had reached. A policeman responded picked up and said his car had met with an accident and asked them to reach Gurugram. Adarsh had told the family they would reach Noida by 2am,” the relative said.

Such accidents are rare but not unprecedented.

On October 6, 2020, two men were killed when a truck carrying a shipping container full of rice sacks lost control and toppled over onto their car at Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar, killing them on the spot.