The bodies of six persons from Calcutta who were killed when the SUV they were travelling in overturned in Odisha arrived in the city on Friday evening.

The Thursday accident occurred on National Highway 5 near Neulpur Chhak, around 80km from Bhubaneswar.

The victims were Pralay Saha, 43; Amit Choudhury, 48, and his wife Subhra Choudhury, 41; Emli Das, 40, her eight-year-old daughter Srija Das; and Samir Dutta, 48. Two other members of the group - Sajal Das, 42, and Adraja Saha, 12 - suffered serious injuries.

The group from BF block in Baguiati was on its way to Puri when the accident occurred.

The decomposed bodies were brought to Calcutta by road after post-mortem in Jajpur, Odisha. They were cremated in the evening.

Pralay Saha once played football for East Bengal.

The group of 15 had left home on Tuesday afternoon in two cars. Eight of them were travelling in a Mahindra Scorpio and the rest were in a Maruti Suzuki Ertiga. The Scorpio had met with the accident.

The group first went to Puri, from where they left for Digha on Thursday morning.

Lalan Bhakat, who was in the Ertiga, said he had learnt from those who witnessed the accident that the Scorpio was travelling at 100kmph when it overturned and fell into a roadside canal while trying to save a cow.

"We had overtaken the Scorpio and were waiting for it to catch up. After waiting for a while, we started calling up those travelling in the car. When repeated calls elicited no response, we drove back. To our horror, we saw the car lying in the canal," Bhakat said.

While three persons, including the eight-year-old girl, died on the spot, the other three succumbed to injuries at a community health centre in Barachana.

Bomb hoax

A bomb hoax triggered panic in a cinema in Hooghly's Baidyabati on Friday.

Police said someone called up the manager saying a bomb had been planted in the hall. A search yielded nothing and the police termed it a hoax call.