Drunk driver crashes bus

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In one of the worst road accidents in the country in recent months, 29 pilgrims were killed and another 16 grievously injured when a private bus, travelling from Hyderabad to Shirdi, fell off a bridge in Osmanabad district of Maharashtra early on Saturday morning.

Reports stated that the driver of the bus was drunk when he lost control and it plunged 30 feet off the bridge. The bus (KA 01D245) belonging to Sree Kaleswari Travels, had left Hyderabad at around 7 pm on Friday evening.

The incident took place at around 2.30 am at Jakot on the Hyderabad-Solapur highway, around 40 km from Osmanabad city. While 27 died on the spot, two were declared dead on arrival at the Solapur General Hospital.

“The driver who was in an inebriated condition lost control and the bus skidded to the left and fell from the bridge,” said Mr Dattatray Karale, superintendent of police. Jyothi Kumar, 37, who lost her husband Dr Sudhir and mother in the accident, said that the driver, G. Yadagiri, 37, had stopped at a dhaba and consumed alcohol. She added that the bus had narrowly escaped accidents twice before it fell off the bridge.

Tragic end to 11 new recruits of tech firm
Saturday’s fatal bus accident left in its wake the shattered dreams and aspirations of the families of 11 software engineers who died in the accident. Fifteen of them, fresh recruits of city-based IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), had embarked on the pilgrimage on Friday evening to Shirdi. All of them, hailing from Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram, had just finished six months of training with the firm and most had studied in Maharaj Vijayaram Gajapati Raj Engineering College in Vizianagaram.

“I will never be able to go back to my room. I had lived with my best friend there and now she is no more. She had been with me for years and I don’t know what to do, said a visibly shaken Ms Varsha. “I came here to recheck on the information praying and hoping that it would be wrong, but it isn’t,” she added.