At least seven persons died and five others were injured on Sunday after a bus carrying them collided head-on with a goods truck on National Highway-27 in Assam’s Kamrup Metro district, police said.
The Additional Deputy Commissioner (Traffic), Guwahati, Safiqul Hussain said the bus lost control and crossed the divider before hitting the truck. The truck driver also managed to flee the accident site, police are looking for him. The deceased have been identified as Prashanta Talukdar (34), Anima Deka Bordoli (32) and Gopal Das (46) of Morigaon, and Insan Ali Sheikh (54), Tafajul Ali (53), Jutika Ronghang (46) and Idris Ali (42) of Kamrup district, police said. The bus carried 14 passengers including a driver and a helper, both of whom died on the spot, according to the investigating officer Dhiren Saika Sonowal. However, the police found 12 persons during the rescue operations. “We found 12 persons, seven of whom died and five are now undergoing treatment.
Because of a pothole, police are examining the reason behind this, including the claim that it happened.
Police said that three persons died on the spot while around nine injured people were shifted to Guwahati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), four of them later succumbed during treatment. “The accident took place at Nalagedera-Tetelia under Khetri police station in Kamrup Metropolitan district and as per the preliminary investigation, the passenger-carrying bus was heading towards Guwahati from Nagaon when it hit a goods truck after losing control,” police said. We believe some people who were sitting at the back of the vehicle managed to leave the spot on their own,” the officer said. “It was so massive that the front part of the vehicle was completely mangled, and the rescue team had to cut open portions of the damaged vehicle to pull out the passengers,” a local resident said.
The incident happened in the Sonapur-Khetri area on the outskirts of Guwahati city on Sunday evening, according to the police.
Officers said that the bodies have been sent for postmortem and the family members of the identified persons have been contacted.
