Poor visibility kills eight students, including a lady, when the SUV they were travelling in, collided head-on with a speeding truck coming from the opposite side at Jardaha More near Dumka on Sunday morning.
Eight students, aspiring for the post of Panchayat Secretary, were going towards Deoghar from Dumka in the SUV to appear in the competitive examination conducted by Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission.
“Seven of them have been killed on the spot while one succumbed to his injuries at Dumka Sadar Hospital. Another person has been referred to Durgapur for better treatment whose condition is also said to be critical,” said Dumka SP Mayur Patel Kanhiaya Lal. Dense fog and over speeding of the vehicles appear to be the prime reason behind the accident, he added.
“As they were going to appear in the examination, they must have been in a hurry and might had directed the driver to make it fast to reach early to the examination centre,” said the SP. Intensity of the accident could be gauged with the fact that a crane had to be engaged for pulling the SUV out of the truck, he added.
Police further said that out of the nine passengers on board including driver, eight were dead while one had been struggling hard for life. Driver and the cleaner of the truck, however, ran away from the spot immediately after the accident, he said.
Later Minister Louis Marandi visited the affected families and expressed grief over the incident. She also assured for all possible assistance from the Government. Local police said that empty truck, said to be coming from Deoghar at a very high speed collided with the SUV near Tool Room and Training Centre (TRTC) at Jardaha More. All the students on board hailed from Dumka. The accident took place at early in the morning at around 6 am while the examination was scheduled at around 8:30 am.
Students who died in the accident include – Sushmita Dutta, Gaurav Dutta, Santosh Gupta, Purushottam Manjhi, Navin Gorai, Swastik Kumar and Devendra Gupta and driver Ambika Prasad Turi.
Notably, it was the second major road accident in a row within a week as twelve people including six women and four children were killed on last Sunday when an auto-rickshaw was hit by a speeding truck at Palamdipa on NH-43 under Bharno Police Station in Gumla.