8 students among 9 mowed down by truck in Bhucho
BATHINDA: Nine people, including eight students, were mowed down by a speeding tipper truck at Bhucho on the Bathinda -Chandigarh highway on Wednesday.
The visibility was poor due to smog in the area.The students had alighted from a private bus that had collided with a PRTC bus ahead of it a few minutes ago when the truck hit them .
Three students of Government Rajindra College, Bathinda, were among those killed. They have been identified as Rafi Mohammad, 20, of Dyalpur Mirza; Shikha,17, of Chauke Street, Rampura Phul, and Khushvir Kaur, 20, of Mehraj Basti, Rampura Phul. Three students of DAV College, Bathinda, Jaspreet Kaur,18; Nancy,19; Vinod Kumar Mittal,18, all of Rampura Phul, were also killed.
Manpreet Kaur, 18, of Lehra Khana village; Ishwar, 18, of Bhucho Mandi, and a 25-year-old employee with the food and supplies department, Labhpreet Kaur, are also among those killed.
About 8am, half an hour before this horrific tragedy, Mandeep Kaur, 30, a teacher at a government school in Pitho village, was killed and 11 injured when a private bus plying towards Bhucho rammed into a PRTC bus plying ahead of it. This accident was on the opposite lane, but around the same spot. The state government has announced a compensation of ₹1 lakh to the kin of those dead and ₹50,000 for those injured.
A case under Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) has been registered against the truck driver, who fled the spot. Onlookers, who had gathered at the spot, after the first accident, said they had warned the tipper driver to go slow. Sukhpal Singh, a worker with a social service organisation, Sahara Jan Sewa, said, “We were taking the injured to a hospital, when we saw the speeding truck. He did not heed our requests to slow down.”
THE STUDENTS HAD ALIGHTED FROM A PRIVATE BUS THAT HAD COLLIDED WITH A PRTC BUS DUE TO SMOG WHEN THE TRUCK HIT THEM