KANPUR: Two men were charred to death after a CNG-powered car burst into flames following a collision with a road divider on the Kanpur-Etawah highway in Derapur in Kanpur Dehat district on early Monday morning, a police official said.
According to the police, the accident occurred near Mungisapur in Derapur when the car (Volkswagen Vento), returning from Delhi, apparently went out of control and hit the divider. The impact is suspected to have triggered a blast in the vehicle's CNG tank, engulfing it in flames within moments.
The fire spread so rapidly that the occupants were trapped inside and could not escape.
Firefighters took nearly 90 minutes to bring the blaze under control, after which two badly charred bodies were recovered from the vehicle.
The deceased were identified as Om Shukla, 23, who ran a two-wheeler and car repair shop, and Gurpreet Singh Dhillon, who was driving the car, said Circle Officer (Derapur) Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
Their identities were confirmed with the help of an Aadhaar card recovered from the burnt vehicle, he said, adding that both were residents of Kanpur.
Police said the two had travelled to Delhi to purchase automobile spare parts and were on their way back to Kanpur when the accident occurred.
Singh said that the bodies of the deceased have been sent for a post-mortem examination, and the charred car was removed from the highway to restore traffic.
Preliminary investigation suggests that overspeeding and the possibility of the driver dozing off at the wheel may have led to the crash, said an official, adding that the exact cause of the accident is under investigation.
Police are also analysing CCTV footage from the highway and nearby areas to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the fatal crash.