Six Indians die in US car crash

Six Indian citizens have been killed in a car crash in western Pennsylvania in the United States, officials say.

The passengers, including two women, died when a minivan carrying them spun out of control and crashed into another car on a highway, reports say.

The driver and another passenger, also an Indian, were injured. They have been released from the hospital.

The Indians worked as computer programmers for a technology firm based in Michigan.

Reports said that the passengers were on their way to Niagara Falls on a vacation when the incident happened on Saturday afternoon.

The police were quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying that the crash killed Kaushik De, 26, Manoj Jhairia, 35, Mili Jharia, 28, Nitin Agarwal, 29, Swati Agarwal, 25 and Shubham Choudhary, 24.

Nitin Gupta, 28, who survived the crash along with the minivan's driver, has been released from the hospital after treatment.

The victims came from various Indian cities and lived in the Detroit suburb, Farmington Hills, according to Syntel, their employee.

A spokesman for Syntel said that the company had started a memorial fund for the families of the victims.

Arrangements were also being made to send the bodies of the victims back to India, he said.

The police said that toxicology tests would be carried out on the minivan's driver, who has been released from the hospital.