Heads ripped off, hands and other body parts strewn over a long stretch — these are not scenes from a war zone but a Dehradun road that witnessed a stomach-churning accident in which six allegedly drunk youngsters out on a spin in a new SUV lost their lives.

Such was the intensity of the collision and the mind-numbing speed at which the car was being driven that it tore off the Toyota Innova’s roof and split the rear of the SUV like a sheaf of paper. The accident took place around 2am on November 12 near the ONGC crossing in the city.

There is no trace of the other vehicle involved in the accident and it appears the Innova had rammed into it from behind. Some media reports claimed that the Innova was racing a BMW.

CCTV footage and video clips recovered from the mobile phone of one of the deceased youths, aged between 19 and 25, suggest they had been drinking in the car.

Those dead have been identified as Atul Agrawal, 24, Kunal Kukreja, 23, Rishabh Jain, 24, Gunit Singh, 19, Navya Goyal, 23, and Kamakshi Kumari, 20.

Atul, son of a firecracker manufacturer in Sahanpur in Uttar Pradesh who shifted to Dehradun last year, had received the SUV as a Dhanteras gift earlier this month from his father. He was at the wheel when the accident took place and was driving at a speed of 180kmph, police said.

All the youths were children of wealthy businessmen in the city.

Siddhesh Agrawal, 25,who was also in the car, is receiving treatment at Synergy Hospital.

“There was no traffic police in the area when the accident took place. The car didn’t have any registration plate. The employee of a mall in the neighbourhood had called up the police to inform them that the youths had been drinking in the car, driving recklessly and stopping sometimes to dance on the road, but nobody came. The accident took place 30 minutes later,” an eyewitness told local reporters on the condition of anonymity.

Ajay Singh, senior superintendent of police of Dehradun, said: “We called experts from the car company and they said the Innova was being driven at 180kmph at the time of the accident.”