Indian-origin driver, 41, has been charged in Australia for a collision that claimed the lives of four Indian passengers after his car hit a utility vehicle, according to news reports.
According to The Age newspaper, Harinder Singh Randhawa was charged on Wednesday with four charges of reckless driving causing death. He is still being treated at a hospital under police guard. On June 8, Randhawa will show up at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.
On January 4, Singh was crossing an intersection in Shepparton, Victoria, Australia, in a Peugeot with four male passengers when the tragedy happened. The vehicle struck a Toyota Hilux ute pulling a trailer. The four passengers perished there and then.
The four guys and the driver were all Punjabis, according to Dharmi Singh, a prominent member of the Shepparton Punjabi community, who confirmed this on Tuesday, according to Shepparton News. He stated, “They (the deceased men) were visiting friends in Shepparton.”
Police say that three of the four men who died were “ejected” from the vehicle, and they are looking into whether the passengers were using seatbelts.
According to Australian Broadcasting Corporation, acting assistant commissioner for Victoria Police Justin Goldsmith stated last week that first indications pointed to a “T-bone type collision.”
T-bone collisions, sometimes referred to as side-impact collisions, happen when the front of one car strikes the side of another car.
“As a result of the collision, three men in the rear of that (Peugeot) hatchback had been ejected and have died. And the front-seat passenger has also been killed,” the acting assistant commissioner added.
“It’s rare that people get ejected when they’re wearing seatbelts. So we can’t stress enough the importance of wearing a seatbelt,” Goldsmith said.
The Toyota Hilux’s 29-year-old driver, who was not critically hurt, pulled over to help the police. According to Ambulance Victoria, he was later transported to Goulburn Valley Health Hospital in stable condition with minor wounds.
The four males died at the scene, according to the police, who also added that they are looking into whether or not they were using seatbelts.
Harpal Singh from the Mukstar, Bhupinder from Jalandhar, Baljinder from Tarn Taran, and Kishan Singh from Tarn Taran have been identified as deceased males.
They came from the state of Punjab and had tourist visas to visit their extended family in Australia, Phulvinderjit Singh Grewal, a social worker in Melbourne, told SBS Punjabi. The relatives of the four guys “were inconsolable,” Grewal told the network.
