Three youth from city killed while cross-racing on Mandarmani beach

Three youth were killed when two expensive cars collided head on while allegedly “cross racing” on Mandarmani beach early Sunday morning.

The victims were residents of Kolkata and New Town. They had left home on Saturday evening and went straight to Mandarmani in a Ford Eco Sport after having food in an eatery at Chinar Park.

The victim - Suraj Dasgupta (20), Shibraj Naskar (21) and Vaibhav Shandilya (21) ­- study together in an international school in Kolkata.

Preliminary investigation revealed that Suraj, a resident of Hiland Park, was driving the car while Sivraj, who was a Beliaghata resident, was sitting on the sit beside him and Vaibhab was in the rear seat. Vaibhab used to reside in a high rise adjacent to City Centre II in New Town.

Suraj, who had been in Banglalore for a long time picked up two of his friends, including Shibraj, who had returned to the city after undergoing a certificate course in Kent University in London.

Police suspect that all three of them were in an inebriated state as empty liquor bottles and ganja spiked in cigarettes were found from inside their car that was damaged completely during the collision.

After speaking to the local people, policemen from Coastal Police Station came to know that the victims’ Ford Eco Sport had collided head on with a BMW on the beach near Sana Resort at around 5.30 am.

Further investigation revealed that they had engaged in “cross racing” in which two cars approach at each other at a top speed and they need to stop the cars leaving a hairline gap between the two.

There were four youth from Jharkhand in the BMW including the driver Dipesh Ranjan. Though the youth from Jharkhand who came to Kharagpur IIT for a project to initiate business in Kolkata, claimed that they were not racing and the Ford Eco Sport hit their car when they were parking their BMW.

Local people, however, claimed that the cars had engaged into “cross racing” thrice and they had become successful in stopping at a point thrice. All the three times the BMW had reached the spot first then the Ford Eco Sport. But everything went wrong when they attempted it for the fourth time. The driver of the Ford Eco Sport failed to control the car and collided head on with the BMW.

All the three youth in the Ford Eco Sport died on spot. The driver of the BMW received minor injuries but three others were rescued safely. Police initiated a probe to find how the racing had become possible on the sand beach, which is wet but solid, where plying of cars are not allowed.

It may be mentioned that cars need to take the beach as there is no roads to reach some hotels. Thus, it makes the task tough for the police to restrict cars plying on the beach.

Sisir Adhikari, the local MP and Chairman of Digha-Shaknarpur Development Authority, said that the cars had been managed to ply on the beach with the help of some local people and as there is a gap where the work cannot be undertaken due to certain disputes.

“I have asked the police to find how they had managed to ply cars on the beach. At the same time the construction of the road will be complete before the Puja and there will be drop gates to check the menace,” he said.

However, according to the car experts accidents due to technical snags in such highly advanced cars are highly unlikely.

Such accidents are due to mistakes of drivers because one needs to have proper training for driving such cars.

Earlier, in an accident on the beach at Mandarmani a person was killed and two were injured. In another accident one had died while paragliding in Mandarmani.