Three persons died and nine were injured after a bus collided with a jeep taxi near Lachmoli Bazaar in Devprayag on the Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway 58.
One of the deceased has been identified as Soni Nautiyal, resident of Agastyamuni. She was the mother of two minor passengers Priyanshi Nautiyal (3) and Prince Nautiyal (5), who suffered injury in the accident. The two other deceased are father-son duo, Vijay Lal (36) and Shivam Lal (14).
Kirtinagar police Station House Officer (SHO) Jawahar Lal giving details about the accident said, “The accident which happened at about 11:40 am. It was a collision between a jeep-taxi which was going from Rudraprayag to Rishikesh and a bus, which was coming from Rishikesh to Srinagar. We rescued the passengers and took them to the Base Hospital in Srikot, Srinagar.”
When asked about the cause of collision he said, “The case is under the jurisdiction of revenue department. Although, it appears that the jeep driver was trying to overtake another vehicle when he ended up colliding with the bus coming from the opposite direction. There were in nine passengers in jeep-taxi with two children and 35 passengers in the bus.”
According to the police, the others injured include driver of the jeep-taxi are Ravindra Singh (31), Bhuwnesh Purohit (45), Bhawana (17), Bhawesh Singh (19), Rajkumar (45), Yashwant Singh (29) and Anita Singh (35).
It is pertinent to mention here that though the authorities claim to have taken various measures to curtail accidents on the mountain roads especially during the Char Dham Yatra, there has been little abatement in accidents that have continued to take place frequently since the start of the Yatra earlier this month.
