Eight Students Killed as Car Rams Parked Lorry in Kerala’s Thrissur

Eight engineering students from Tamil Nadu were killed in a road accident in Kerala’s Thrissur district late Friday night, police said on Saturday. The students were travelling in a car from Guruvayur towards Kodungallur along National Highway-66 when the vehicle collided with a lorry.

The accident occurred around 11.40 pm near Panambikkunnu in Kaipamangalam, police said. The car, bearing a Tamil Nadu registration number, crashed into the rear of a Maharashtra-registered lorry that was parked on the highway.

Six students died at the spot, while two others were declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. The victims were students of an engineering college in Dindigul, Tamil Nadu.

Police have identified six of the deceased as Surya, Yuvasanjith, Vishva and Johua, all from Dindigul, and Santhosh and Prasanna from Madurai. The identities of two other students are yet to be confirmed.

Residents, fire and rescue personnel and police teams participated in a rescue operation to extricate the victims from the mangled car. The bodies were subsequently shifted to the mortuary at Thrissur Medical College.

According to the FIR, the lorry had been parked illegally on the right side of the highway, near a barricaded stretch where traffic had been diverted due to ongoing construction work. Police said the car was travelling at high speed and its driver apparently failed to notice the diversion barricade before crashing into the stationary lorry.

Kaipamangalam police have registered a case against the lorry driver under Section 105 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for culpable homicide. The driver reportedly fled the scene following the accident and remains untraced.

Police contacted the families using student identity cards recovered from the bodies. Some families were reportedly unaware that the students had travelled to Kerala.

Postmortem examinations will begin after the victims’ families reach Thrissur Medical College, police said.