Six members of a family, including three women and a boy, were killed instantaneously when their car rammed a stationary lorry at Thamaraipadi on the Dindigul-Tiruchi National Highway-45 on Sunday.
The deceased were A. Venkatachalam, 37, a hotel owner at Sirumayankudi in Kattur near Lalgudi in Tiruchi district; his wife V. Geetha, 35, a lecturer of a private teacher training institute at Lalgudi; his son V. Sri Balaji, 11; and relatives Shanthi, 42, M. Mohan, 33, and Bhanu, 46. The incident happened around 6.30 a.m. when the victims were going to meet Venkatachalam’s another son V. Sri Ram, who is studying Class VII at Vivekananda Matriculation Higher Secondary School at Pannaikadu at Kodaikanal, the police said.
The driver, Mohan, lost control of the car. Mohan was alive for some time, but he died when a ‘108’ ambulance reached the spot, eyewitnesses said.
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C. Pichaimuthu, a chicken stall owner at Thamaraipadi, said the car swerved to the left, possibly because of a tyre burst. However, the police ruled it out as the car was fitted with tubeless tyres. The bodies were shifted to the Dindigul Government Hospital for post-mortem.