Three persons, including a six-year-old girl, all residents of Kasba, died in a road accident in Gangtok on Monday. The south Calcutta neighbourhood has been feeling the shockwaves over the past 24 hours.

When their bodies arrived in Kasba at Wednesday midnight, many local people had gathered near the home of the Mandal family. Bikash Chandra Mandal, father of one of the victims, was very distressed. He had lost his wife a few years ago, and even before he could recover from that shock he lost his son, Ram Chandra.

The tourists were returning to their hotel in a Trekker after a trip to Tsomgo. The driver of the Trekker suddenly lost control of the vehicle and it hurtled into a gorge. Some local people rushed to the spot and carried the injured persons to a nearby hospital. Ram Chandra Mondal, his neighbour Jhuma Roy and her daughter Ankita, who were in the car, were pronounced dead at the hospital.

After arriving in Gangtok on Tuesday, Raja Mondal, Ram Chandra?s brother, and others learnt that the accident had occurred when the Kasba tourists were returning after visiting Tsomgo. The Trekker in which they were travelling nosedived into a ditch and all of them were seriously injured.

Victims Ram Chandra, 34, a businessman of Kasba, Jhuma Roy, 30, and her daughter Ankita, 6, were declared dead in hospital. Three other residents of Kasba were also in the Trekker but they escaped death. They are now admitted at various hospitals with serious injuries. The driver of the car and two other persons were also injured and admitted to hospital, police said.

A pall of gloom shrouded Kasba on Wednesday night when the bodies of the three Kasba residents were brought home by their relatives and neighbours.

Raja Mandal and other acquaintances and kin of the victims went to Gangtok to bring back the bodies and the injured persons. Raja said his brother Ram Chandra along with their neighbour Jhuma, her daughter, father and sister and Sanjoy Som, a businessman of Kasba, had left for Gangtok on Saturday. After arriving there on Sunday, Ram Chandra had informed them over the telephone that they were safe and sound.

?But on Monday afternoon, we received a call from Gangtok asking us to reach there immediately as my brother and other members of their party have met with a serious accident and all of them have been admitted to a local hospital,? he said.

?We are traumatised. We are bewildered, as we do not know how we shall break the news to our 70-year-old father, Bikash Chandra Mondal. We lost our mother in 1999, and before we could recover from that shock, this news has overwhelmed us,? said Raja.

Members of the Som family, too, are in a state of deep shock. Though Sanjoy Som evaded death, he had received serious injuries in his right eye. He was admitted to a private eye hospital in Salt Lake, where he will undergo surgery. The doctors stated his condition to be critical.

?The terrible news took us by surprise. Every year, Sanjoy goes for holidays. We are at a loss how we will inform his aged mother,? said a worried relative of Som at the hospital.