Warangal: 3 die as car plunges into canal

Warangal: In a tragic road accident, three persons were killed, and one escaped after the car in which they were travelling plunged into Sri Ram Sagar Project (SRSP)

canal near Konkapaka village under Parvathagiri mandal in Warangal Rural district on Wednesday.

The deceased were identified as Veerla Sridhar (38), a fertiliser distributor in Warangal, Baikani Rakesh (28), field assistant, and Pasula Saraswathi (42), school teacher in Gunturpally. Hamsa Vijay Bhaskar, who swam to the banks, is the lone survivor, Parvathagiri Inspector P Kishan said.

Vijay Bhaskar, who works as a sales executive with a private fertiliser company, said that he along with Sridhar and Rakesh were on their way to Parvathagiri in his car to collect the dues from fertiliser shops. The most unfortunate was school assistant Pasula Saraswathi. She asked for a lift to be dropped on the way.

It's learnt that although Vijay Bhaskar drove the car initially, Sridhar took over the steering at Teegarajupally. He lost control over the wheel due to over speeding and rammed into the embankment before plunging into the canal.

Although all the inmates of the car managed to get out of the car, only Vijay Bhaskar was able to swim and reach the canal banks with the help of locals. Despite the efforts of the locals, the other three drowned. Later, the villagers fished out the bodies of Sridhar and Saraswathi. They are yet to trace out the body of Rakesh.

The police pressed a crane into service to pull out the car. The bodies were shifted to MGM hospital for postmortem.

Minister for Panchayat Raj Errabelli Dayakar Rao visited the accident spot and expressed condolences. He directed the officials to take measures to avoid such accidents again.