Mumbai, Nov 6: Six people, including a six-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl, were killed and three others injured after a taxi carrying nine people of the driver’s family crashed on the Eastern Freeway on Saturday morning. The driver, Mangru Verma, lost control of the Hyundai Santro and the car crashed on the freeway’s exit ramp at Wadi Bunder, while they were on the way to Mumbadevi temple.

Police said the accident took place around 9.10am, around half an hour after Mangru left his Wadala home with his wife, two children and his sister-in-law’s family, which had come visiting from Surat and were supposed to return on Sunday.

Mangru, who survived the crash and is recovering at JJ Hospital, admitted to having overloaded the car, which is supposed to carry only five persons.

While Mangru lost his wife, Anara, 35; daughter, Asha, 11; and son, Rajkumar, 6; his sister-in-law, Rajshri Verma, 35; her husband, Harkesh, 45; and their daughter, Ragini, 19; were also killed in the crash. Harkesh and Rajshri’s two sons, Vinay, 20; and Ravi, 16; survived the accident. The two are also recuperating at JJ Hospital.

The survivors told the police that the accident took place after a vehicle overtook the taxi on the exit ramp and Mangru swerved the car to avoid a collision. He lost control of the car, which brushed a wall and hit an electricity pole.

The impact of the collision threw open the rear left door and two of the women victims got thrown out of the car.

While the police rushed all the occupants of the car to JJ Hospital soon after the accident, six people did not survive the accident.

“The police are recording statements of the survivors and will visit their Wadala residence for further investigation” said Pratap Jadhav, inspector at Dongri police station. After the initial investigation, the Dongri police have registered a case against Mangru under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).