Four employees of IT company killed, three critical as SUV skids off Yamuna Expressway

Four employees of an IT company including a woman were killed on Sunday after their SUV skidded off the Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida amid light rains and fell into a 30-ft ditch alongside the road, police said.

The incident took place around 10 am near the Zero Point in Greater Noida's Knowledge Park police station area and nine people were inside the brand new SUV, a senior official said.

Five of their colleagues who suffered serious injuries in the crash have been hospitalised where the condition of three was stated to be critical, the official said.

"The speeding SUV was apparently taking a U-turn near Pari Chowk when it skidded off the expressway and fell into a ditch, about 30 ft deep. It couldn't negotiate the turn in the high speed," Circle Officer, Greater Noida-1, Tanu Upadhyay said.

"Three people died immediately and six others were rushed to a private hospital. One of them later succumbed to injuries," she said.

Altogether nine people, six men and three women, all aged between 25 and 35, were inside the SUV at the time of the incident, the police said.?

A survivor told police that all of them worked at a private IT company located in Noida sector 2. The firm also has a call centre and the group that was in the crashed vehicle had people from the IT team as well as the call centre, according to police.

The group had gone out to celebrate in the "new car" purchased by one of the seniors, Upadhyay said.

"The group had set off in the car early this morning and went to Aligarh also. They were returning from there when the incident took place," she said.

On July 8, 29 people were killed after a speeding passenger bus veered off the Yamuna Expressway near Agra and plunged into a drain about 40 ft deep. The police had suspected that the driver of the bus, enroute to Lucknow from Delhi, had fallen asleep.

More than 700 people have died and over 7,600 injured in nearly 5,000 accidents along the 165-km-long Yamuna Expressway since it was opened in 2012, according to an official figure.

Officials say over speeding is one of the main causes of incidents on the six-lane highway managed by the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA).