Purlia: In a tragic incident, as many as nine people were killed after a Bolero SUV collided with a truck in West Bengal’s Purulia district on Friday morning. The incident took place on National Highway 18 near Namshol village around 6.30 am, police said.
The victims were coming back from a wedding ceremony in Adabana village in Purulia. They were travelling to Tilaitand in neighbouring Jharkhand. All nine occupants of the four-wheeler were killed in the incident, Balarampur Police Station in-charge Soumyadeep Mallick was quoted as saying by PTI.
The victims were rushed to a nearby primary health centre by locals and emergency responders , where all were declared by the doctors. According to preliminary investigations, the accident took place due to overspeeding and possible negligence. The impact of the head-on collision was so severe that the SUV was mangled, the police said. A case has been registered and further investigation is on, they added.
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Meanwhile, state Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari questioned the road safety standards in Bengal and urged state government to prioritise improving road safety standards to prevent such “heart-wrenching tragedies.” Earlier on Thursday, three people died and 26 others injured after a passenger-filled bus collided with a truck in Howrah.
“The loss of precious lives in these incidents is deeply painful, and I extend my heartfelt condolences to the grieving families. I pray for the speedy recovery of those injured and currently undergoing treatment,” he wrote on X. He further said that these back-to-back tragedies “expose the alarming deterioration of road safety standards in West Bengal under the supervision of the West Bengal Police, which falls directly under the purview of Home Minister Smt. Mamata Banerjee”.
Adhikari blamed poor traffic management, inadequate road infrastructure, failure in enforcement of safety regulation for the rising number of fatal accidents on the roads of West Bengal. he also took a sharp dig at the Chief Minister for criticising air safety standards in the country in the wake of the Ahmedabad Air India crash.
“While I appreciate that our Hon’ble Chief Minister Smt. Mamata Banerjee has turned on her focus on air travel safety issues and expressing her ‘expert’ opinion almost every day since the Ahmedabad air crash, I urge her to shift some of that attention to the dire state of road safety in our state,” Adhikari said.
