5 killed, 1 injured as MUV veers off highway to crash into tree near Mohol

Kolhapur: Five people were killed, and a woman was injured when the car they were travelling in from Panvel in Raigad district to Akkalkot in Solapur veered off the Pune-Solapur highway and crashed into a tree 15km from Mohol town around 11.30pm on Saturday.The Mohol police said the driver lost control of the vehicle at a place called Devdi Phata along the highway, as it veered off the road. It then hit a tree before cartwheeling a few times and coming to rest some metres away from the tree. The impact was such that the multi-utility vehicle (MUV) was reduced to a mangled heap.The police have identified the deceased as Mala Salave, a 40-year-old resident of Sector 18 in New Panvel, Archana Bhandare (47), from Sector 7 in Panvel West, Vishal Bhosale (41), from Railway Colony, Panvel station, Amar Patil from Kharghar, and Ananda Mali, whose address is yet to be ascertained. The injured woman, Jyoti Takle, is also a resident of Sector 7 in Panvel. She has been admitted to the Civil Hospital in Mohol. Doctors at the Civil Hospital had declared the other victims brought dead.According to the police, the injured woman, Jyoti Takle, is out of danger. Moreover, she has been able to reveal the events leading up to the accident to the investigating officers. "According to the injured woman, the accident was caused by speeding. Their MUV must have been doing 100km per hour at the time of the accident. The group had left Panvel around 2.30pm, and the accident occurred at 11.30pm. Their destination, Akkalkot, was roughly 100km away when the accident took place," said head constable Atul Kshirsagar, who is investigating the accident.The police said that the deceased people and the injured woman were long-time friends. According to Takle, Amar Patil had hired the MUV from one of his relatives for the trip, and he was driving the vehicle."They had taken a break somewhere along the way and then left, hoping to reach Akkalkot by early morning. We had to use a cutter to cut open the vehicle, as it was badly crushed and the passengers were stuck inside. The postmortem has been completed for two of the deceased. Their relatives will take the bodies back to their place for the final rites," said Kshirsagar.