5 killed, 8 injured in road accident in Andhra Pradesh's Tirupati

TIRUPATI: Five people were killed and eight others sustained injuries in a ghastly road accident on Tirupati-Chennai national highway on Sunday.
A group of employees working at a private company in Tirupati hired a passenger vehicle to visit the Anjeramma folk temple in Vadamalpeta near Puttur.
The vehicle driver who went in the wrong direction to avoid a U-turn, after crossing over the SV puram toll plaza near the Vadamalpet ghat road, rammed it into a milk van coming in the opposite direction.
While two persons died on the spot, several others who sustained injuries were immediately rushed to the SVRR government general hospital in Tirupati by the police.
Puttur DSP K Srinivas told reporters that two passengers identified as Girijamma and Revanth died on the spot while three others, including Rekha, Ajay Kumar and the milk van driver Subramanyam died while undergoing treatment at the hospital in Tirupati later.
DSP Srinivas attributed the accident to the negligence of the driver who took the vehicle in the wrong route to avoid a U-turn in order to shorten the travel distance to the local shrine.
Puttur police have registered a case and are further investigating.