NAVI MUMBAI: Three IIT-Bombay students who had gone to Lonavala to watch the sunrise were killed on their return journey after their car crashed into a truck, overturned multiple times, and slammed into a safety railing near the Panvel exit on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on Thursday.
Police said the accident occurred when the car, allegedly attempting to overtake the truck, rear-ended it. The truck driver fled the scene, and an FIR has been registered against him for rash and negligent driving causing death.
The impact left the car completely mangled. Three other students, travelling in two separate cars, were accompanying the victims. While police have ruled out drunk driving for now, they are awaiting autopsy reports. Officials from the RTO have inspected the vehicle to determine whether seatbelts were worn and if overspeeding was a factor.
Anand Kamble, crime inspector at Panvel taluka police station, said CCTV footage was sought from IRB Infrastructure, which manages the expressway, but the camera closest to the accident spot was not operational.
The deceased have been identified as Omkumar Borse (23) from Nashik, a third-year aerospace engineering student; Lay Deshbhratar (20) from Nagpur, a third-year physics student; and Shreyansh Sharma (22) from Jaipur, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student.
Fellow students remembered Sharma as a popular figure on campus who had contested the general secretary elections. His brother said he aspired to join the IAS after graduation. According to his social media profile, Borse had secured a state rank in Class 10 and ranked third in a state-level mathematics scholarship exam.
Police said the group of six students had stayed up all night watching movies before deciding around 4am to drive to Lonavala in three separate cars. Borse, Sharma and Deshbhratar were in one vehicle, Soham Chavan and Siddhant Jebal in another, and Hitesh Meena in the third.
Based on Meena’s statement, senior inspector Gajanan Ghadge said that as they approached the 10.7-km mark before the Panvel exit on their return, Borse—who was driving—lost control while attempting to overtake a truck from the extreme left lane and crashed into it. The car flipped several times before hitting the railing, leaving all three occupants critically injured.
They were rushed to a private hospital in Navi Mumbai, where doctors declared them dead on arrival.
Police said CCTV footage could help establish the exact sequence of events. Kamble added that the RTO report would also clarify whether the airbags deployed at the time of the crash.
