Sultanpur, UP: Three tennis players were killed, and an equal number were injured when the car they were in rammed into a truck's rear on the Purvanchal Expressway here on Wednesday, police said. The accident took place around 5.30 am near Sukhbaderi in the Dhanpatganj Police Station area, when the allegedly speeding Maruti Suzuki Ertiga carrying the six players crashed into the rear of the truck, they said.
The players were returning to Deoria after participating in a sporting event in Lucknow.
According to preliminary information, the car was speeding at around 100 kmph. The impact left the car mangled, trapping the occupants inside. Police, with the help of locals, broke open the doors and extricated them. All six were taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors declared three of them dead, the police said.
The deceased were identified as Nitya Prajapati and Irfan Ansari, aged 22 and 20, both from Deoria, and Aniket, a 24-year-old resident of Bhagalpur.
The injured were identified as Anand Yadav, 23, Raju, 22, and Jayanto Sharma, 30, a resident of Birbhum in West Bengal. They were referred to Ayodhya Medical College for further treatment, the police said.
Sharma told the police that most of the car occupants were asleep and were jolted awake by the collision. The truck driver sped away after the accident and is being looked for, the police said.