5 of Chinchwad family die as car falls off bridge

Police inspector H D Chaugule, who is in charge of Bhor police station, said, “Some people on their morning walk saw the car in the waters of Neera river and called police around 6 am. The car’s rear portion was visible. Our teams reached the spot along with divers. They extricated the bodies from the car around 7.30 am. We suspect the accident took place around 5 am. It seems the driver lost control of the car and it fell off the bridge. The car uprooted an iron pole at a spot where the bridge begins. It seems the car was in high speed. There was no proper protective wall on this portion at the beginning of the bridge to slow the car down.”

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Pravin was employed with a private manufacturing unit in Ranjangaon MIDC as a supervisor and his father Dattaram Bhosale worked in the canteen section of Tata Motors in Chinchwad. Dattaram’s elder brother Atmaram Bhosale said, “Most of our family members had gone to Khopi Shirgaon for Holi celebrations. Pravin had to join work on Wednesday so they started late on Tuesday around 11.30 am from Khopi Shirgaon.”

The post-mortem was conducted on Wednesday afternoon and the last rites were performed in the evening in Mohannagar area of Pimpri-Chinchwad.

‘A proper protective wall could have saved them’

Local police and the State Highway Police say that though human error could have caused the accident, lives could have been saved if there would have been a signage warning drivers about the bridge after the turn on the road, or there would have been a protective wall (railing) to cushion the impact and prevent the car from toppling down.

Police inspector H D Chaugule of Bhor police station said, “Human error could have caused the accident, but there is no protective wall at the beginning of the bridge. Also there are no signage boards warning about the turn and the bridge. There was an iron bar where the bridge begins and that had been uprooted. We believe that if the wall and signage boards were there, lives could have been saved.”

A team of State Highway police visited the spot on Wednesday afternoon. Assistant inspector Shahaji Mane of the Highway police said, “The car went down the slope, it must have hit the water nose down and caused jerk injuries as the water was shallow. A protective wall could have slowed down the car. We are writing about these required changes to the Public Works Department (PWD).”

Chaugule added, “The PWD has been communicated about this in the past and the local press has also written about this.”

Bhor PWD officials were unavailable for comment. When contacted for comment, Pune guardian minister Girish Bapat did not answer the calls. ENS