Professional car racer Ashwin Sundar and his wife Niveditha were charred to death after their BMW car crashed into a roadside tree on the Santhome High Road in Chennai on Saturday. The incident occurred at around 3:30 am when the duo were returning home.

According to the police, Sundar and his wife were trapped inside the car as they could not open the doors. The car caught fire and the couple were burnt alive. Sundar, a national champion in F4 racing in 2012 and 2013, was driving the car. Nivedhitha was a doctor who worked at a private hospital.

Onlookers alerted the Chennai city police control room, and a team of police personnel rushed to the spot. Fire and rescue services also were called in and they struggled for around half-an-hour to put out the fire. Eventually the police were able to open the door and recover the bodies of the couple. The bodies were sent to the Government Royapettah Hospital for postmortem.

With the help of the vehicle registration number, the police were able to identify the couple. They couple lived in Alapakkam near Porur and were returning from a friend’s house at MRC Nagar in Raja Annamalaipuram when the accident occurred.