Bhubaneswar, Nov. 14: Five persons were killed when the BMW in which they were travelling overturned near Malatipatapur flyover, around 8km from Puri, and fell into a nullah today.
The deceased included the owner of the vehicle, Ashish Kumar Sahu, 45, a Bhubaneswar-based medicine wholesaler. Ashish also owned a hotel at Saheed Nagar. The others have been identified as Sibu Paoddar, 42, a Cuttack-based cloth merchant, Biswajit Sahu, 32, the driver of the vehicle, Swastika Rath, 28, of Puri and Debabrata Das, 31, of Kalahandi.
Police said Das was working as the manager at Ashish's hotel.
The incident took place when they were returning to Bhubaneswar after taking part in a feast at Ramchandi near Puri along the Puri-Konark marine drive. The police suspect that the accident took place around 2am as Ashish had called his family around 12.45am and told them that he was starting for Bhubaneswar.
Some villagers spotted the car in the water body at dawn and informed Chandanpur police. "We saw the car in the water body. No one inside the car responded to our calls," said a villager.
The police took the help of fire personnel to cut the windows of the vehicle and extract the bodies.
The police suspect that the deaths were caused by suffocation. "The condition of the vehicle gives an impression that the SUV turned over several times before falling into the water body. We suspect that the central locking system of the sophisticated SUV failed after the mishap, as a result of which, the victims could not come out of the car," said a police official.
The police said all the deceased suffered multiple injuries. "We have handed over the bodies to their relatives. Further investigation is on to find out the circumstances, which led to the mishap," said inspector in charge of Chandanpur police station Arun Tripathy.
In a similar incident in December last year, three engineers had died after the car in which they were travelling had caught fire on the National HighwayNo. 5 at Malipada on the city outskirts following a road mishap. The deceased, who were returning to Berhampur from Bhubaneswar, were charred to death after the central locking system of the vehicle failed.
