Five youths die in Kurseong car crash

SNS, KURSEONG, SILIGURI, 17 AUG 2020: Five youths from Siliguri were killed when the car they were travelling in skidded off the road and fell around 500 feet down a gorge on Rohini Road, near Kargil Dara in Kurscong in Darjeeling on the night of 15 August. However, the matter came to light only yesterday evening after some local people spotted two bodies lying on the cliff.

Following information from the locals, a team of the Kurseong police and fire brigade rushed to the site in the evening yesterday and started the rescue work, it is learnt. Sources said that the team recovered two bodies late in the night yesterday.

"We later came to know that there were five persons in the car and a search team went there early morning to day. After a lot of effort, the team recovered the three bodies too today and sent them to the Kurseong hospital for post-mortem," sources said. The dead have been identified as Rishab Das, 17, Subrato Das, 21, Bikram Das, Abhranil Kundu, 21, all residents of  Rathkholain Siliguri, and Raj Singh, 19, a resident of Milan Pally in the town. According to the ASI:

Kurseong, Manoranjan Ghosh, CCTV footage at the Rohini toll gate showed the youths crossing the gate and headed towards Kurseong at around 11:30 pm on the night of 15 August.

"The accident may have occurred while they started to return to Siliguri," he said.

Meanwhile, in Siliguri, a pall of gloom descended on Rathkhola and Milan Pally as the news spread today.

Family members of the youths and their neighbours said they had also gone to Lataguri in the Dooars in Rishab's car in the morning on 15 August and had returned in the evening.

Locals said they had spotted the five youths at Rathkhola at around 8 pm that evening.

"It appears that they left for Kurseong after 8 pm and fell into the gorge while returning to Siliguri," a local person at Rathkhola said.

Sadhan Das, the grandfather of Subrata Das, said all the family members and close neighbours had frantically tried to contact them over the phone that night, but in vain.

"We also filed a missing diary at the Siliguri police station yesterday. We came to know about the accident only last night. All the family members rushed to the spot today," Mr Das said.

(Source& courtesy: https://epaper.thestatesman.com/2789311/Siliguri-The-Statesman/18TH-AUGUST-2020#page/2/2)