The son of a prominent hotelier in Kerala’s capital city of Thiruvananthapuram died on Friday after he lost control of his vehicle and rammed into a pole, NDTV reported. Three women who were in the car with him and an auto-rickshaw driver were injured in the accident, which reportedly took place in the city’s Kowdiar area around 10.45 pm on Thursday.

Twenty-one-year-old Adarsh SP, who hails from the city’s Vallakkadav neighbourhood, was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead. Two of the women are admitted to the intensive care unit at the hospital.

The police refused to confirm reports that Adarsh was racing his car – a brand new Skoda – when the accident happened, reported The News Minute. “We cannot confirm the accident occurred during racing unless we check the CCTV visuals,” Sub-inspector G Sunil told the news website. “We have to find if there were other speeding vehicles passing through the area at that time,” he added.

Unidentified police officials told NDTV that preliminary investigation suggested that “the driver tried to avoid an auto-rickshaw while taking a U-turn”. Firemen had to come in and cut open the vehicle to extricate the passengers.