New Tehri: Three members of a family were among six people killed after their car fell into the Yamuna river in Uttarakhand's Tehri district early on Wednesday, officials said. The accident occurred at 1 am near the Aglar bridge on the Delhi-Yamunotri highway.
Police were informed when the passengers in the car could not be contacted by their family members. On the basis of the occupants' mobile phone location, the badly-damaged car was spotted on the riverbank around 4 pm, Subdivisional Magistrate (Nainbagh) Manju Rajput said.
The car, which was ferrying a youth from Mori in Uttarkashi district to Dehradun for treatment, had fallen around 250 metres into the Yamuna river, she said. As the accident occurred late in the night, it is yet to be ascertained how it happened. When the family members could not contact the occupants in the morning, they informed the Kempty police station at 11 am.
The police launched a search operation on the basis of the riders' mobile locations and discovered the vehicle around 4 pm. Nainbagh Tehsildar Rajendra Prasad Mamgain said the damaged car was lying on the banks of the river near the Aglar bridge. By the time police, revenue police and State Disaster Response Force teams reached the spot, all the occupants had died.
The victims have been identified as brothers Pratap (30) and Rajpal (28), Rajpal's wife Jasila (25), Virendra (28) and driver Vinod (35). All of them were residents of Mautad Mori village while the sixth victim Munna (38) was from Devatri village.
