Ludhiana siblings among four killed as car plunges into canal

Tribune News Service

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Ludhiana March 9

Four youths, including a brother-sister duo, lost their lives after a Hyundai i20 car in which they were travelling plunged into the Sidhwan canal near the Municipal Corporation office at Sarabha Nagar here.

The mishap was captured in a CCTV camera, which showed that the car was moving at a high speed. Kashish, who was driving the car, failed to negotiate the turn towards the canal bridge. As he lost control over the vehicle, it rammed into the barricades and fell into the canal.

The deceased have been identified as Bhavneet Juneja (24) and his sister Sanya Juneja (21) of Phase 2 Dugri, Sanya’s college friend Devesh Chandra from Lucknow and Kashish Arora of Model Town Extension.

Bhavneet had recently completed his degree in civil engineering and was assisting his father Manpreet Juneja, a government contractor. His sister was into fashion designing. She had studied at Pearl Academy, Gurgaon.

Devesh had come to the city for appearing in IELTS, which was due on Monday. He was staying with Sanya’s family. Kashish, whose father Suresh Arora is a building contractor, was driving the car.

Meanwhile, an eyewitness claimed that soon after the accident he rung up the police control room number 100, but no one responded.

Sarabjit Singh, a delivery boy with Zomato, said he was crossing from the canal road when he saw the car plunging into the canal around 11 pm. He then raised alarm. “I made repeated calls at ‘100’, but nobody responded. I then called ‘181’ following which a police team reached the spot in 10 minutes, but it was too late as car had completely drowned by then. A passerby even tried to save the occupants, but he failed as the car’s doors were locked. It took the rescue team 30 minutes to take out the car with the help of a crane,” he said.

Another eyewitness said the victims were rushed to different hospitals, but none of them survived. All four victims knew swimming well, area residents said.