Engineer killed as lorry smashes into car

CHENNAI: A family’s pilgrimage to Tirupati had barely begun before it ended in a tragedy, when a 50-year-old engineer of Anna Nagar was killed after the car in which he was travelling to the temple-town along with five others was hit by a speeding container lorry that turned turtle at Thirumangalam on Sunday.It was around 4 am, when the travels’ car carrying J Vittobaraj, his wife Jamuna Devi and son Muralidharan, a final year medical student in a college at Perundurai in Erode, left their house in Welcome Colony at Anna Nagar (West) Extension. Travelling in the ‘Innova’ along with them were Jamuna Devi’s brother Sivashanmugham, his wife Thamizharasi and son Ashwin Kumar.Vittobaraj, a junior engineer with the Metrowater division at K K Nagar, had rented the car to make a quick family trip to Tirupati, when fate intervened in the form of a 30-foot container lorry. The engineer’s car reached 15th Main Road on 100 Feet Road at Thirumangalam junction, when a Koyambedu-bound container lorry, coming from Padi over-bridge, unexpectedly took a left turn at the junction. “Instead of proceeding straight to Koyambedu, the lorry, loaded with two containers, swerved to the left towards Anna Nagar,” R Thenthamizhvalavan, Inspector (traffic investigation-Thirumangalam), told Express.Since the heavy vehicle was being driven at high speed by the driver Sivaraj, a native of Cuddalore district, it immediately skidded, he said. It turned turtle to the right and one of the containers got dismantled and smashed into the engineer’s car, leaving it a mangled wreck. Vittobaraj, who was seated at the back on the left side, sustained serious head and chest injuries, while others escaped, the inspector said. Police officials arrived at the spot and the engineer, who was detected with a faint pulse, was initially rushed to a private hospital and later to the Kilpauk medical college hospital, where he was declared ‘brought dead’. The lorry driver was also admitted to the hospital with head and arm injuries.Registering a case under Sections 304-A and 279 of the IPC, the Thirumangalam traffic police conducted the investigation.