Three persons — a sub-inspector of police, a constable, and a cab driver — were killed on the spot and two other police personnel were critically injured when the SUV in which they were travelling crashed into a roadside iron girder after hitting the median near a railway underbridge at Chavatapalle village of Puthalapattu mandal, about 25 km from here, on the Naidupeta-Puthalapattu National Highway on Sunday.
Superintendent of Police Y. Rishant Reddy and Deputy Superintendent of Police (Law and Order) N. Sudhakar Reddy inspected the accident site.
Mr. Sudhakar Reddy said that two batches of police personnel from Bengaluru Urban were on their way to Tirupati in two private SUVs in connection with the investigation of a drug case registered at the Shivaji Nagar police station there.
A few minutes after the first vehicle passed the bridge point, the second vehicle, carrying two SIs, four constables, and a private cab driver, hit the median before crashing into an iron girder on the other side of the road.
The impact was such that the vehicle had turned into a lump of steel, and it took a long time for the police personnel and the locals to rescue the injured and retrieve the bodies.
The deceased were identified as sub-inspector Avinash (35), constable Anil (30), and driver Joseph (30). The injured were sub-inspector Deekshit and constable Saravana Basava.
The bodies were shifted to the Government Hospital in Chittoor, and the injured were rushed to the CMC Hospital at Vellore in Tamil Nadu.
The Puthalapattu police registered a case.
Karnataka Minister for Horticulture Munirathnam Naidu and a batch of senior police officers from Bengaluru rushed to the district hospital here to see the bodies and to enquire about the condition of the injured at the CMC Hospital.
Conspiracy denied
Mr. Sudhakar Reddy dismissed the speculation that there could be a conspiracy by the drug mafia behind the road accident.
“We have thoroughly inspected the accident site and there is absolutely no conspiracy behind it,” he told The Hindu.
The police verified the CC camera footage from some vital junctions on the highway on both sides of the accident spot and did not find anything suspicious.
