Chandigarh, June 6 (IANS) At least eight people, comprising women and children, were killed and 11 suffered grievous injuries on Saturday in a head-on collision between an overcrowded pick-up (a commercial vehicle usually used for transporting people) and a heavy-duty truck in Punjab’s Ferozepur district, police said.

Nearly 25 people, all belonging to a close-knit family from Jalabad village, were travelling to a religious place Beas in Amritsar district to perform the last rites of a family member.

The accident occurred on the Ferozepur-Fazilka road at around at 5.40 A.M. The collision between the pick-up vehicle and the truck was so massive that the former was dragged and damaged massively.

The police, passersby and local residents had to tear down mangled remains to take out several occupants who were trapped inside the vehicle.

Four occupants of the pick-up vehicle were killed on the spot, while four succumbed to injuries on the way to hospital.

Ferozepur Senior Superintendent of Police Rajinder Singh told the media that the victims were travelling to Beas to immerse the ashes of a deceased relative in the Beas River. He said most of the victims belonged to a close-knit family.

“The cause of the accident is yet to be ascertained,” he said, adding the injured were transported to the Civil Hospital in Ferozepur by ambulance.

Dr Nikhil Gupta, Senior Medical Officer at the Civil Hospital, said that several critically injured people were referred to Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital in Faridkot for further treatment.

Eyewitnesses said the truck driver lost control over the vehicle and rammed into the pick-up vehicle and dragged it several metres. The postmortem of the deceased is underway.

Upon receiving news of the accident, a Road Safety Force team and half a dozen ambulances arrived at the scene to rush the injured to the hospital. The occupants of the pick up were traveling from Jalalabad West to Dera Beas when the accident took place close to Janganwala morh.

Elsewhere, at least eight people were injured when a bus, on its way from Delhi to Manali, met with an accident on the national highway in Haryana’s Karnal district, police said on Saturday.

–IANS

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