Little did they know that his words would prove prophetic within the next few seconds.
In a Facebook live video that has now gone viral on the social media, Dr Anand Prakash, 35, a professor at a private medical college in Rohtas, was reportedly behind the wheel while one of his co-travellers can be heard egging him on to touch 300 km per hour.
Ironically, he said, “charo marenge (all four of us will die)” during the live stream right before encouraging the driver to speed up.
The BMW was at 230 KM per hour when the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle which crashed into an oncoming container.
The vehicle was reduced to a mangled heap of metal and the bodies of the four friends – a doctor, an engineer, a real estate owner and a businessman – thrown out on the road in a highly mutilated condition.
The four, all in their thirties, were travelling from Sultanpur to Delhi on Friday when the accident took place.
Sultanpur SP Somen Barma said all aspects related to the accident were being probed and a team had been formed to trace the absconding container driver, who has been charged with causing death by negligence pending a technical inquiry into the crash.
“A technical inspection of the BMW and the container truck will be done with assistance from the forensic state laboratory,” the officer said.
Anand Prakash’s uncle A.K. Singh told reporters that his nephew bought the BMW from the owner of a private educational institution in Delhi.
Taking note of serious and fatal crashes on national highways damaging to the reputation of the NHAI, the authority has said it will hold officers issuing provisional certificates for projects before the completion of road safety works ‘liable’ and act against them.
In a recent circular, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has said the provision of provisional completion certificate specifies that a road can be allowed for operation pending minor works with a condition that these must be completed within 30 days.
“However, it has come to notice that provisional completion certificates are being issued keeping safety items/works such as road markings, road signage, end treatment of crash barriers in the punch list, which not only compromise the safety of users but also bring bad name to the NHAI upon occurrence of accidents and fatalities,” the circular said.
The highways authority said it has taken serious note of such “dereliction of duty” by the representatives of NHAI and independent or authority engineers involved in issuing the provisional completion certificates. It said the persons concerned must ensure that the road safety works are completed in all respects before issuing the certificate.