Five members of a family while returning to Mumbai from a trip were killed as their car collided head on with a tanker on Mumbai-Goa Highway in the Raigad district on Thursday.
After the mishap, the tanker driver fled from the spot. While four persons died on the spot, the fifth member died while being taken to a hospital in Mumbai.
According to the Mangaon police, the accident took place at around 2 am on the highway in Potaner village. The Maruti Swift was on its way to Mumbai from Devgad, while the tanker was going towards Mahad in the Raigad district.
Sunil Gadkar (49), who was behind the wheel, lived in Goregaon (east) and was a banker. The other deceased were identified as Gadkar’s mother-in-law Shubhangi Salvi (62), Salvi’s two daughters Suchita (27) and Dipti (39) and her cousin Sangeeta (47).
The motorists who witnessed the accident informed the police after which Salvi — the lone survivor at that time — was rushed to the hospital.
For better treatment, Salvi’s relatives tried to rush her to a hospital in Mumbai, but she succumbed to her severe head injuries.
According to police officials, the road, where the accident took place has a divider; the reason behind the fatal accident was, however, unclear.
No eyewitnesses have come forward to record their statements. However, the police is now trying to reconstruct the sequence of events based on the damages seen on the abandoned tanker and the car.
“From the damages on both vehicles, it seems that the Swift car while overtaking another vehicle might have crossed the divider and collided with the tanker. However, it is too early to ascertain the same. We are trying to trace the tanker driver,” said a police official.
On April 22, the family had gone to their village in Malgund, Raigad for Ganpatipule palki and was on their way back home in Mumbai.