Five persons, including a businessman and a software engineer, were killed after two cars collided head-on at high speed on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on Monday morning.
The accident took place about 74 kilometres away from the Mumbai end of the Expressway near the Kamshet tunnel around 8.30 am. The speeding Maruti Swift heading towards Pune, driven by one of the deceased, Ajit Lalvani (50), crossed the divider and collided with a speeding Maruti Suzuki Eeco coming from the opposite end.
The Eeco was moving towards Mumbai and three persons seated in it lost their lives, while two others are grievously injured. “The accident took place because Lalvani was over-speeding and lost control over the wheels. He was not under the influence of alcohol,” said senior police inspector, Sopan More of Wadgaon Maval police station.
“There is no concrete cement divider to divide the north-south bounds. There are several trees along the highway, which are treated as dividers. If there was a proper concrete divider, some of these lives could have been saved,” said an investigating official from Wadgaon Maval police station, who did not wish to be named.
Lalvani, a resident of Mulund owns PCM Company in Mumbai that supplies cleaning equipment. He was accompanied by his friend Prakash Salve (45), a software
engineer and resident of Sewri. The three deceased from the Eeco are driver Shivaji Waikar (47), a BEST driver by profession and a resident of Bhandup, Yadneshwar Phatak (50) and Gajanan Pandit (41) both residents of Pune and working for private firms.
Swanand Atre (29), a resident of Kopar Khairane in Navi Mumbai and Kishan Indulkar (50), a resident of Pune are battling for life in Lokmanya Hospital in Nigdi, Pune.