The Ford Fiesta being towed away. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Calcutta, Dec. 20: A teen returning home with three friends after a visit to the Kalighat temple on his 19th birthday was killed with two of the others when their car crashed into an electric pole on Vidyasagar Setu.

The Ford Fiesta, apparently travelling fast through the 9.30am traffic, hit the divider railings after a tyre burst, rammed into the pole and turned turtle, smashed out of shape.

Birthday boy Ankit Agarwal, Garvit Sharma, 20, and Swetank Jain, 20, were killed while Vineet Saraf, 21, is recovering at the Calcutta Medical Research Institute.

The childhood friends lived in the Ganges Gardens housing complex in Shibpur, Howrah, where they had planned a birthday party for Ankit in the evening, family sources said. “They were close friends and were seen together most of the time,” a neighbour said. “They played cricket and badminton and often set out on long drives.”

Swetank, Garvit and Vineet studied BCom at a Bhowanipore college while Ankit had joined father Arun’s garment business in Park Street after clearing Class XII.

The friends had left Shibpur around 6.30am in the car, owned by Swetank’s father Subodh Jain, a chartered accountant who runs his own firm. Garvit’s father Surendra Sharma has a salt factory in Gandhinagar. Vineet’s father Pawan Saraf is an executive in a private firm.

“It was Ankit’s birthday so he had gone with his friends to the temple,” said neighbour Manoj Pandey. Friends and family members said Swetank was driving the car.

It took the police over an hour to extricate the victims from the wreckage. Three were declared dead at SSKM Hospital.

About Vineet, a CMRI official said: “He has injuries in the spine and waist. There are cuts and bruises. A CT scan revealed no injury to the brain.”

“He is extremely shocked and barely able to speak,” said uncle Shiv Shankar Saraf.

The three bodies were taken home in the evening after post-mortem.