CHENNAI: Two youngsters who were shooting reels in the middle of a national highway were fatally knocked down by a speeding car on Friday evening.Police said a Class XII student and a 20-year-old man were filming videos to post as reels on social media on the Thachur-Chittoor green corridor national highway near Pallipattu in Tiruvallur district when the tragedy happened.The deceased were identified as E Jayakumar, 19, and S Lokesh, 17, both residents of Karlampakkam village near Pallipet. Lokesh was a Class XII student at a private school in Pallipattu. Preliminary inquiries revealed that the accident occurred around 4.30pm when the two youths had stopped on the highway after travelling on a motorcycle from Puttur towards their village.They were busy recording videos on the carriageway when they were struck by a luxury car coming from Bengaluru to Chennai.The victims suffered fatal head and body injuries and died at the scene. Passersby alerted the Pallipattu police, who recovered the bodies and sent them to Tiruttani Government Hospital for postmortem examination.Police identified the driver as J Henry Isaac, 55, a resident of Kothagudem in Telangana. The car bore a Maharashtra registration number. Officers said the driver fled the scene after the accident and remained absconding.A case was registered based on a complaint lodged by Jayakumar’s father. Police launched a search to trace the driver and are examining CCTV footage.
