At least 11 pilgrims were killed and 37, including six children, injured when a speeding bus they were travelling in rammed into a stationary truck on NH19 near Burdwan town on Friday morning.
Two of the deceased were women.
Police said all the deceased and injured persons were pilgrims and residents of Motihari in Bihar. They were returning home after visiting the Ganga Sagar island and offering prayers at the Shiva temple in Tarakeswar when the accident occurred around 7.30am on Independence Day.
The injured were admitted to Burdwan Medical College and Hospital. The 11 tourists were declared dead on arrival by the doctors at the hospital. The doctors said all the deceased suffered severe head injuries.
The deceased are yet to be identified. After inspecting the condition of the bus after the accident, the police said the driver might have also died in the accident.
The doctors said the death toll might increase as the condition of some of the injured admitted to the hospital was critical.
The police said that altogether 49 persons, including the driver and six children, were travelling in the bus.
The accident occurred at Fagupur under the jurisdiction of Burdwan Sadar police station. The police suspect the bus driver perhaps dozed off at the wheel, leading to the accident.
“We are now busy identifying the deceased persons and informing their family members in Bihar. We are also probing how the accident took place. The driver may have become tired and sleepy because of long driving and could not notice the stationary truck on the highway,” a police officer in Burdwan.
The investigators are also searching for the driver of the truck that was parked in the middle of the highway.
Soon after the collision took place, local people rushed to the rescue of the injured. A highway police patrol team also arrived at the scene and transported the injured to
the hospital.
“We were sitting at a tea stall when we saw the bus at high speed ramming into a truck parked in the middle of the highway. Some of the passengers flung out of the bus from the windows following the impact of the collision,” said a witness.
Local people said the truck was stationed on the road because of some technical glitches in the engine since early morning Traffic came to a halt on the busy Delhi-bound highway for over an hour.
Later, the police removed the mangled bus and the truck from the road.