Rampur superintendent of police Somendra Meena said the exact cause of the crash was still being determined but indicated the road may have been dark. “CCTV footage from the area is being examined.”

The police identified the deceased as Delhi residents Abhishek Agnihotri, 28, Kartik Rajput, 32, Neeraj Singh, 31, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, 27. The injured — identified by the police as Kamal, Vishal and Jatin — received first aid at a community health centre (CHC) before being referred to the Rampur district hospital for further treatment, officers stated.

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The police stated that all 12 members of the group were residents of Delhi and were associated with a private IT firm, either as employees or business-to-business (B2B) vendors. The company had rewarded the group with a trip to Corbett National Park for achieving their corporate targets, according to the police.

The group left Delhi for Ramnagar in two cars, with seven people travelling in one vehicle and five in the other.

Akhilesh Singh, who was among the group of 12, told police that a tyre on the car that later crashed punctured about one kilometre before the accident site. The group replaced the tyre and resumed their journey. Singh stated that he shifted from the ill-fated car to the other vehicle during the interim.

When the first car failed to catch up, Singh added, they called their colleagues and learnt that the vehicle had crashed.

The police said the sound of the collision alerted locals, who rescued the occupants from the mangled car and took them to the CHC, where doctors declared Agnihotri, Rajput and Neeraj Singh dead. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who sustained critical injuries, died during treatment. Kamal, Vishal and Jatin remain under medical care.

The family of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said he left home around 9pm on Friday. He had been working as a network engineer for an internet service provider company in Gurugram for five years after completing a computer science course in Sonepat, Haryana.

Saddam Hussain, 34, the victim’s brother said the family was from Bihar’s Aarah and stayed at a rented house in northwest Delhi’s Azadpur. He said that before leaving home for the trip, his brother asked him for spare change to buy a Metro train ticket.

“He took a ₹100 banknote, thanked me, and said goodbye to me and my wife. Those were the last few words of my brother before he left for the trip,” said Hussain.

Hussain said he was informed about the incident at around 6.30am by his brother’s friend. He said that he had asked his brother to cancel the vacation, citing landslides during monsoon in hill stations. “But he insisted, saying he was going with friends to a place in Uttarakhand that wasn’t a hilly area. My brother would have been alive had I compelled him to cancel the trip,” he said.