A Class XII CBSE examinee was killed and another critically injured when the bike they were riding without helmets careened off the carriageway and crashed into a tree near a cemetery, 60km from Bokaro steel city, on Wednesday afternoon.

The two students of Kendriya Vidyalaya were returning home from school around 2.30pm after submitting their physics practical copies, the theory test for which is scheduled on March 9, when they met with the accident in Bokaro Thermal township.

The bloodspill took the district death toll in road accidents involving two-wheelers to 32,at least 19 of them helmet-less students or teenagers.

According to what eyewitnesses told police, the 18-year-old victim - later identified as Kendriya Vidyalaya student and Bokaro Thermal resident Sujit Kumar Ravi - was speeding along the state highway. Classmate Prakash Kumar, a resident of Kurpania in Bermo, was riding pillion.

"Near the cemetery in Bokaro Thermal, the biker tried to negotiate a sharp bend; but, since he was in top speed, he lost control. The two-wheeler rammed into a tree on the roadside. While the pillion-rider was flung off his seat, the biker's head was battered on impact," said a policeman.

Passers-by rushed a bleeding Sujit and Prakash to the BTPS Hospital nearby, where the former was declared brought dead. Dr K.K. Mandal, who attended to the students, said Prakash had received injuries in the lower abdomen region, but his condition was stabilising. "The other student had succumbed to multiple head injuries."

On hearing the news, students and teachers of Kendriya Vidyalaya reached the hospital to bid final farewell to Sujit.

On February 18, a 17-year-old school student had died in a similar bike crash. Class XI DAV boy Nishant Kumar had taken his father's bike out for a spin when he was hit by an unidentified vehicle near Sector IX.He was not wearing a helmet like Sujit.

In January, 13 bikers died in Bokaro and nine of them were either teenagers or men in their early twenties. Only two wore helmets. In February, the toll was 17, 12 of them teenagers and none wore a helmet.

<>In fact, till date, more than 90 per cent two-wheeler accidents in the district have involved teenagers without helmets, said Bokaro DSP (traffic) R.K. Singh said: "Despite repeated warnings, these youngsters don't wear helmets. Fines don't bother them either. They put their own lives and that of others at risk."