A Singaporean couple on holiday in India, Mr Yuvarajan Selvam and his wife Nagajoethi Varasarasun were killed on Sunday after a speeding tanker crashed into the car that they were in, along with the driver who was driving them.
They were on a holiday at the time, flying from Singapore to India on 8 March, with the rest of their family from Singapore scheduled to join them on 13 March for the second leg of their holiday.
On 12 March, however, the couple’s family received a phone call bearing tragic news, informing them that they had been killed in a traffic accident in India.
Yuvarajan was a construction manager while his wife, Nagajoethi was a teacher; they had hired a driver and car on Sunday morning to fetch them from Chennai, where they were staying, to Tirupati to visit a temple.
The journey was supposed to be about 3.5 hours long over 130km.
At about 8.30 am local time, when they were near the Nagari, Andhra Pradesh area at the halfway mark of the journey, an oil tanker that was speeding crashed into their car and ploughed it off the road and onto a nearby field.
The couple and the driver were reportedly killed straight away.
The driver of the oil tanker had reportedly fled the scene following the accident, resulting in a massive police manhunt being launched for him.
The man was subsequently tracked down and arrested by the police.
The Indian police said that the couple had been on their way to the temple in Tirupati for “darshan”, to seek blessing by viewing a deity.
The couple’s bodies had to be extricated from the wreckage of the crash and sent to a Nagari hospital for an autopsy.
Their family were informed of the tragedy at about 3 pm the same day, and they had to inform the couple’s 9-year-old son about his parent’s death.
The family then flew over to India that same night to repatriate the bodies.
In a tragic #RoadAccident, three persons died, when the car they were traveling, collided with a Oil tanker lorry near Darmapuram X Road in Nagari mandal of #Chittoor dist. They were in the way to Tirumala.#RoadSafety #CarAccident #AndhraPradesh pic.twitter.com/JmVVRQWBeG
— Surya Reddy (@jsuryareddy) March 12, 2023