Three men riding a motorcycle were killed after their bike allegedly crashed into the rear of an unidentified vehicle on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway (DME) near Bhojpur in Ghaziabad early Wednesday, senior police officers said.

Bhaskar Verma, assistant commissioner of police, Modinagar, said the vehicle involved in the crash could not be traced. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

The victims were identified as Raj Kumar, 25, a resident of Kankrola village in Haryana’s Gurugram; his relative Gyan Prakash, 26, a resident of Kalai in Aligarh; and their friend Pradeep Kumar, 24, said officers.

Police received information about the accident around 5am. “A team from Bhojpur police station reached the spot and took the three victims to a hospital, where they were declared dead. None of them was wearing a helmet. The motorcycle sustained damage to the front, suggesting that it had crashed into the rear of an unidentified vehicle,” said deputy commissioner of police (Ghaziabad) Surendra Nath Tiwari.

Bhaskar Verma, assistant commissioner of police, Modinagar, said the vehicle involved in the crash could not be traced. “There is a rotating camera near the accident site. It was facing the other direction when the crash occurred. We are checking footage from other cameras to identify the vehicle,” he said.

Police reiterated that two-wheelers and three-wheelers are prohibited on the DME.

The bodies were sent for autopsy. Police said they were awaiting a complaint from the victims’ families to register an FIR and initiate legal proceedings.

Police said they were trying to ascertain whether the three men were Kanwariyas, pilgrims who undertake the Kanwar Yatra to fetch Ganga water from Haridwar. “We did not recover any (religious) belongings, and they were wearing normal clothes rather than the saffron attire typically worn by pilgrims,” Tiwari said.

However, Raj Kumar’s father, Rameshwar Prasad, told HT, “Late on Tuesday night, my son took money from his mother to go to Haridwar for the Kanwar Yatra. The motorcycle they were travelling on belonged to Gyan Prakash’s relatives,” he told HT.

“All three were going for the yatra; otherwise, there was no reason for them to be on the expressway so early in the morning,” he said. He added that his son was a widower.