Four Indians, including a woman, died in a road accident involving five vehicles in US' Texas. The victims had connected through a carpooling app and were travelling to Bentonville in Arkansas on August 30.
The crash led to a fire in the SUV they were in, and their bodies were charred. Authorities are relying on DNA testing to confirm the identities, according to NDTV. The deceased have been identified as Aryan Raghunath Orampati from Hyderabad, Farooq Shaik, a friend of Aryan, Lokesh Palacharla, another Telugu speaker and Darshini Vasudevan from Tamil Nadu. The accident occurred at around 3.30 pm.
According to reports, Aryan and Farooq, both residents of Bentonville, were returning from a trip to Dallas, where they had visited Aryan's cousins. Lokesh Palacharla was travelling to Bentonville to meet his wife and Darshini Vasudevan was on her way to visit her uncle.
Orampati's father Subhash Chandra Reddy owns a Hyderabad-based firm named Max Agri Genetics Private Limited. Aryan completed his engineering degree at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Coimbatore. "His parents were in the US in May for his convocation at the University of Texas. After the convocation, they asked him to return to India, but he said he wanted to work in the US for two more years. Fate has struck like this," a relative told NDTV.
Farooq Shaik's father Masthan Vali said he went to the US three years ago. "He went to the US to complete his MS degree. He finished it recently,” said Vali.
Darshini Vasudevan’s family appealed to external affairs minister S Jaishankar for assistance to bring her remains back to India.
According to reports, a speeding truck rear-ended the SUV the victims were in. The car burst into flames and all the occupants were immediately burnt to death. Authorities are now reportedly relying on DNA fingerprinting and teeth and bone remains to confirm the identities. "DNA fingerprinting will be done to identify the bodies, and the samples will be matched with the parents," a local authority told NDTV.
Several Indians have died in vehicular accidents in the country in the last few months. Recently, three members of an Indian-origin family were killed in a car accident in Houston, Texas. On May 14, three Indian students lost their lives in a major car crash in Alpharetta, Georgia.
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