This week’s crash victims
A cousin of one of two men killed in a head-on crash in North Canterbury is too distraught to sleep in the bedroom the pair had shared.
Kamalpreet Singh, 23, and Lovepreet Singh, 19, died when their car collided with a truck on State Highway 7 about 5 kilometres north of Culverden just after 8am on Tuesday. It is understood they had driven onto the wrong side of the road.
Jagmeet Singh said he and Lovepreet were ‘‘like brothers’’. They shared a room and explored the country together.
He said the man he thought of as a best friend had arrived in New Zealand from a small village in north India to study hospitality six months ago and loved the life he had built here. He was thriving in Christchurch, had a close-knit group of friends and was coming to the end of his first semester of study.
Jagmeet said he picked up the phone to call Lovepreet on the day of the crash, but decided it could wait.
‘‘I thought, ‘should I ring?’ I always call him on my days off but I knew he would be tired, so I thought I will speak with him tomorrow.
‘‘The last time we spoke he arrived home late from a friend’s house and we lay awake talking until two or three in the morning about our family back in India. We always made sure to talk to each other when he came home, we’re family,’’ Jagmeet said.
When he left for work the next day, Lovepreet was still asleep. That was the last time he saw him.
Kamalpreet and Lovepreet became friends after working at City Cleaning Services, before Kamalpreet took a job with Metro Performance Glass. Both men were of the Sikh faith and were relatively new to the country, and were still settling into their new home.
They had picked someone up from Christchurch Airport and given them a ride to Hanmer Springs late on Monday and were returning to Christchurch on Tuesday.
Amrit Singh, a friend of Lovepreet’s Christchurch-based cousin, has been liaising with the High Commission of India in Wellington on behalf of the family.
The bodies would be returned to India for their funerals, he said.
Kamalpreet and Lovepreet’s white car was heading south when it collided with a northbound truck on SH7, which became the main highway in the upper South Island after the November earthquake.
The truck driver was uninjured in the crash. Police said an investigation was ongoing.