Tragedy struck Agra, when five rag pickers sleeping by the roadside were mowed down to death while two others were critically hurt by a speeding truck on National Highway 2 in Sikandra area late on Tuesday night.
After preliminary probe, the police said that the truck driver was coming from Kanpur and was headed to Delhi. As he neared the accident site, he probably lost control over the vehicle and veered towards the pavement where the victims were sleeping. While five of them were killed on the spot, two others were injured and shifted to medical college hospital.
The truck driver was arrested and the vehicle was seized.
The deceased were yet to be identified.
In a similar case in Meerut, a sub-inspector and a constable were injured, when a car being driven by a youth crushed them after breaking a road barrier put up for vehicle checking in Partapur area late on Tuesday night.
Sub-Inspector Hem Singh Saini and constable Neeraj Rathi were injured and had to be hospitalised. The police arrested the drunk driver, later identified as Amit of Delhi. The car was seized and the accused was examined medically to ascertain alcohol level in his blood. A case of hit and run was registered against the accused.
Meanwhile, an old woman died after the terrace of her house collapsed in Chaubepur hamlet of Nawabganj in Gonda. Gyanmati (60) was sleeping in her house on Tuesday night when the incident happened due to incessant rains, in which she was trapped under the rubble and died before locals could rescue her.