Bhubaneswar, Sept. 3: Two MTech students died and a BTech student was injured when the motorcycle they were riding met with an accident near Khandagiri Square in the early hours today.

Police are yet to ascertain the circumstances leading to the mishap and suspect that the trio were drunk.

The deceased have been identified as Gangadharan, 21, and Vishal Gowal, 22, both MTech students at a city-based private engineering institute. The police said while Gangadharan was from Tamil Nadu, Vishal was a native of Assam.

The injured — Tilak Rudra, 19, a second year BTech student of the same institute — is from the Andamans. He was rushed to the nearest hospital where he is undergoing treatment. His condition is said to be stable.

Police said the incident took place around 1.30am when the three were heading towards Tamando Square.

“Witnesses said the motorcycle was hit by a tractor while some others claimed it lost control after overtaking the tractor, and there was finally a crash. We have seized the tractor and its driver and are probing further,” said inspector in charge of Khandagiri police station Himanshu Bhusan Swain.

“The victims had borrowed the motorcycle from a friend. Both the deceased died on the spot. We are waiting for the injured student to get well so that we can record his statement to ascertain the circumstances leading to the accident,” said a police official.

Khandagiri Square, which is very vulnerable to road accidents, has been identified as a “black spot”. The transport department had earlier proposed to build a flyover with an underpass at the square to reduce accidents.

In another incident, six persons suffered severe injuries in a road accident near Chandaka on the city outskirts this evening. The injured have been admitted to Capital Hospital. The police said the accident took place when two two-wheelers had a head-on collision.

“A family of husband, wife and daughter were on a Scooty when they faced a head-on collision with a motorcycle with three persons on it coming from opposite direction,” said a police official.

Jena letter

Former Union minister and Congress leader Srikant Jena on Sunday wrote to chief minister Naveen Patnaik urging him to set up a sports complex and stadium in memory of Bijepur MLA Subal Sahu, who passed away on August 22, in Bargarh district. In his letter, Jena cited how as a volleyball player, Sahu had earned laurels for the state.

Tata library at KISS

Tata Steel has set up a library building constructed for Rs 4.4 crore at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS). The 150-seater library was inaugurated by chief minister Naveen Patnaik yesterday at KISS, which was recently conferred with deemed university status by the union of human resource development ministry.

Additional reporting by PTI