Two Indian students from Telangana were killed in a car accident in the US on Thursday, April 21, while three others were injured. The students, Vamshi Krishna Pechetty from Bachupally and Pavan Swarna from Khammam, were graduate students of computer science at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. They were both 23 years old. Along with three other students, they were travelling in a car which collided with another car on Illinois Route 3 in Union County on April 21.
The injured students – Kalyan Dorna, Karthik Kakumanu and Yaswanth Uppalapati – are also students at the same university. The driver of the other car, a 32-year-old Missouri woman named Marie A Meunier was also killed in the accident, according to the Chicago Tribune. The victims reportedly died on the spot. The students were driving a Toyota sedan while the woman was driving a Fiat sedan. Her car crossed the centre line and struck the front of the Toyota which was being driven by Pawan Swarna, according to the report. Vamshi and Pavan’s bodies will arrive in Hyderabad on Monday, April 25, according to The New Indian Express.
Earlier on March 13, another Indian student from Telangana died in a road accident in Germany. Twenty-seven-year-old Amar Singh from Achampet village in Akkaram mandal of Nagarkurnool district was travelling with some friends when he met with an accident and died on the spot.
One day before the incident, on March 12, five Indian students were killed in a road accident in Canada. The victims, aged between 21 and 24 years, were all students in the Greater Toronto and Montreal areas. The accident happened on Highway 401 in the Quinte West city in Southern Ontario. Harpreet Singh, 24, Jaspinder Singh, 21, Karanpal Singh, 21, Mohit Chouhan, 23 and Pawan Kumar, 23 were pronounced dead at the scene.
In January, an Indian family of four, including a three-year-old, were found dead near the Canada-US border in Manitoba. Canadian authorities said the family from Gujarat died due to exposure to extreme cold. The family was trying to cross into the US through the Canadian border by foot, police had said.
