At least 18 devotees, including six women and five children, were killed early on Monday in a head-on collision between a jeep and a truck near Punjab's Moga town, police said. Eleven victims belonged to one family and six to another.
The accident took place on the Ludhiana-Ferozepur highway around 2 a.m., near here, 170-km from Chandigarh.
The jeep was badly mangled following the accident and rescuers had to cut it at places to get the bodies out.
Police said 14 people were killed on the spot while four others succumbed to their injuries in a hospital in Moga.
"All those killed in the accident were travelling in the jeep," a police official at the site said.
Police said the speeding truck, which was trying to overtake another vehicle, collided head-on with the jeep. The truck driver fled the spot, leaving his vehicle behind.
The victims belonged to Daulatpura village in Moga district and were returning from a gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Nanaksar near Jagraon town.