A 30-year-old youth was killed when the bike he was riding was hit by an unknown vehicle on NH-33 early on Saturday. The accident happened at Saharbera under Chandil thana area of the adjoining Seraikela-Kharsawan district, about 25 km away from Jamshedpur.

The victim, identified as Gunjan Kumar, was killed within one minute of his conversation with his father, PK Lal over the phone.

Chandil thana OC, Uday Prasad Gupta confirmed that an unidentified vehicle had caused the mishap, resulting in the death of the youth.

“Several heavy vehicles pass through the NH-33 every minute, but some local villagers had heard a sound resembling a mishap. On reaching the spot, one of the villagers found the youth was lying in a pool of blood. The villager had first informed the Chandil police and subsequently made a call on the number the victim had made his last call to. Incidentally, the call was received by the victim's father,” said Gupta while talking to The Telegraph Online.

A resident of Baradwari locality of the city, Gunjan had come out of his house at around 4 am without informing his parents about his visit to Chandil for some work. At about 6 am, his father called asking him about his whereabouts when Gunjan said he was on his way to Chandil and presently he was at Saharbera.

The victim also begged pardon of his father for not informing anyone in the family as all were in deep slumber then. But within two minutes, Lal's phone rang again and on receiving the call, which was from his son's number but the voice was that of a stranger. The stranger made some queries and finally informed Lal that his son was killed in a road mishap.

On getting the information, Lal rushed to the spot, about a half-an-hour drive from Baradwari to find his son's body lying in a pool of blood and his bike lying beside. The helmet was found tucked on the rear side of the vehicle's rod, suggesting that the victim was without a helmet.

By the time a police party from the Chandil thana had also reached the spot and seized the body.

The OC said the youth might have been knocked down by some heavy vehicle soon after he started his bike following his conversation with his father over the phone. He said the victim had not put on his helmet and said had he done so might have survived the mishap.

Gupta also said they are trying to identify the vehicle that caused the mishap taking the CCTV footage, but it is unlikely that they would get any positive result from this angle as there was no such electronic gadget near the mishap spot.

"But we will still try to detect the vehicle that caused the mishap by putting our resources and trying to find out any eyewitnesses of the incident," said OC, adding that they have recovered the body and sent it to the Seraikela Sadar Hospital for autopsy.