Three professional tennis players were killed and three others critically injured after the car they were travelling in rammed into an unidentified truck from behind on the Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh ‘s Ayodhya early Wednesday morning.
The impact was so severe that the car was left badly mangled, and several passengers were trapped inside. Security personnel of the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) and local police rushed to the spot after being alerted and extricated the occupants from the wreckage. The truck driver fled the scene following the accident. A police team inspected the site and began investigating the circumstances leading to the crash. Efforts were also underway to identify and trace the truck involved in the accident.
The accident occurred near milestone 97.500 at around 5 am, when the six players were returning from Lucknow to Deoria after playing a tennis event, according to the police. The three injured were identified as 23-year-old Anand Yadav, a resident of Lakhaura under Lar police station in Deoria; 22-year-old Raju, of Taiyar Buzurg in Deoria; and 30-year-old Jayant Sharma, son of Janardan Sharma and a resident of Jamuni in Birbhum district of West Bengal .
All of them were asleep when the crash occurred, and he could not say how the accident happened, according to one of the injured passengers. One of the injured, Jayant, told police that all six were professional tennis players and had travelled to Lucknow to play before starting their return journey to Deoria. He said the passengers were asleep during the journey and unaware of what caused the collision. Police said the car was travelling towards Deoria when it crashed into the rear of the unidentified truck.
