Tirupur: Four people were killed and two others injured after a minivan in which they were travelling collided with a truck near Palladam in the early hours of Monday. The injured were admitted at a private hospital in Tirupur.
A Karthik, 27, of Rakkiyapalayam on Kangeyam Road, was working as a tailoring contractor in a knitwear garment factory in Tirupur. He bought a new minivan on Friday.
Karthik with his brother A Manickaraj, 21, and four of his employees - F Ajmer Khan, 21, V Saravana Kumar, 31, Mohammed Hussain and Mohammed Moideen Thaufik - went to Coimbatore in the minivan to buy some additional fittings for the vehicle on Monday. Hussain drove the minivan when they were returning to Tirupur the same night, said the police sources.
When they crossed Karanampettai on Coimbatore-Trichy highway at around 12am, Hussain lost control of the vehicle and dashed against a Cochin-bound container truck coming in the opposite direction. The head-on collision, which took place near Kuppusamy Naidu Puram, left all the six occupants of the minivan injured, said a police officer.
When they were rushed to the Palladam government hospital, Karthik, Manickaraj, Ajmer Khan and Saravana Kumar were declared brought dead. Hussain and Thaufik were later taken to a private hospital.
The police handed over the bodies of the deceased after completion of post-mortem on Wednesday, said a police officer.
He said, "Preliminary investigations suggest mistake on the part of Hussain for the accident. Moreover, absence of a central median on Palladam-Karanampettai stretch could also have played a part in the accident. It was high time that the National Highways consider establishing a central median on the stretch." The Palladam police have registered a case and investigations are on.
