3 killed as car crashes into stationary truck on Pune-Mumbai expressway

PUNE: Three people, including two senior officers of a multinational electrical instruments manufacturing company at Andheri in Mumbai, were killed after their hatchback car crashed into a stationary truck along the Pune-Mumbai Expressway near Urse, about 35km from the city, around 7.30am on Friday.
All the three bodies were stuck in the mangled remains of the car.The head of the victim sitting next to the driver was separated from the body. Police and the rescue team had a tough time removing the bodies.
The Pimpri Chinchwad police identified the deceased as Rahul Kulkarni (42) of Dombivli, Hemant Raut (32) of Bhayandar in Mumbai and Kulkarni's father-in-law, Vijay Khair (71), of Satara. A case of accidental death has been registered with the Shirgaon police.
Kulkarni was the deputy general manager (sales) of the electrical instruments firm. Raut was a senior sales and project manager in the company, the police said.
An officer from the Shirgaon police said Kulkarni hailed from Satara district. On Friday, he and his colleague had to visit Satara for some official work. "Kulkarni's father-in-law, Khair, was in Mumbai. He also decided to return to Satara with Kulkarni," the officer said.
Senior inspector Vanita Dhumal of the Shirgaon police said the victims' relatives told the police that they had left for Satara in the early hours of Friday. Raut was driving the car.
"Their car crashed into the rear of a stationary truck when they reached Urse around 7.30am. The coal-laden truck's driver had parked the vehicle along the service road because one of its tyres had flattened," Dhumal said.
Assistant inspector Sumaiyya Bagwan of the Highway Safety Patrol (HSP) said the accident occurred because of the car's high speed and its driver could have dozed off. "When we reached the spot, we found the car stuck inside the rear of the truck," she said.
She said the police had to use a crane to remove the car. "The head of the man sitting next to the driver was separated from the body. The driver's head was also badly damaged. Initially, we thought there were only two men in the car. When we checked its rear part, we found Khair's body stuck between the CNG tank and the rear seat of the car," Bagwan said.
She said the rescue teams had to cut the mangled remains of the car to take out the bodies. "It took almost one-and-a-half hours to recover the bodies and send them for post-mortem to a government hospital in Talegaon Dabhade," she said.