Three dead, over 40 injured in separate highway accidents on Mahakumbh route

Three people have died, and over 40 devotees heading to attend the Mahakumbh in Prayagraj have been injured in two separate highway accidents in Bharatpur and Kanpur, police said on Thursday.

A truck rammed into a car carrying four devotees on the Bharatpur-Karauli state highway near Kurwriya village in Rajasthan, killing three devotees on Wednesday night, said Bayana Sadar police station in-charge Krishanveer Singh. He added that three others sustained injuries.

“A police team reached the spot and took all of them to a hospital in Bayana, where three were declared dead on arrival by the doctors. Three others, including the truck and cab drivers, are undergoing treatment in the hospital,” the officer said.

The deceased were identified as Gopal Singh (32), a native of Rudawal and the car driver, Ram Chandra (30), and Lakhan Singh (35), both natives of Karauli. “The bodies were handed over to the family members after the postmortem examination,” said the officer.

In a separate accident, nearly 40 people were injured early Thursday morning after a bus carrying devotees to the Mahakumbh collided with a trailer truck on the Agra-Lucknow highway near the Bakewar overbridge in Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district, police said.

The bus, ferrying devotees from Delhi and Faridabad, was travelling from Delhi. The bus driver was trapped in the wreckage and had to be pulled out with great difficulty, said a police officer.

The injured, aged between 17 and 70 years, were taken to the Mahwa health center for treatment, said Bakewar station house officer (SHO) Bhupendra Singh Rathi.

Among the most critically injured was the 40-year-old bus driver, Vinod Upadhyay from Bulandshahr, who was referred to the district hospital after his condition worsened, the officer added.

Rathi said that the bus had been removed from the highway with the help of a hydraulic crane.

Police are investigating the cause of the accident.