At least 20 members of a marriage party from West Bengal were killed in a road accident in Jharkhand early on Wednesday. Unofficial sources put the death toll at 30. Twenty others were injured in the accident. They were returning to their home in Burdwan after the marriage.
The mishap took place at around 6.30 am when the bus in which they were travelling rammed into a roadside tree on the National Highway 2 at Barwa in Dhanbad. The bus driver had lost control, preliminary investigations revealed.
“Twenty of the passengers were killed on the spot,” said Suman Gupta, superintendent of police, Dhanbad.
There were 57 members in the marriage party which had gone to attend the wedding of Bijoy Roy from Shyamdih village at Salanpur in Burdwan with Sunita of Madara village in Jharkhand on Tuesday. The deceased includes father of the groom Chhola Roy, elder brother Haradhan and his son Gopal, groom’s uncle Mangal and niece Nandini.
The injured were initially rushed to three nearby hospitals. They were then shifted to Pataliputra Medical College and Hospital later. The condition of 11 of them is critical.
As the news of tragedy reached the village, a pall of gloom descended. “I have lost everything and do not know how I would be able to spend the rest of my life,” cried out Aloka, Bijoy’s mother.
Besides the groom’s family members, their neighbour also lost three of their family members in the accident. The victims were identified as Dipak, Shambhu and Hemanta. Mourning the death, a local resident Kartick Rajak said, “We are not being able to control our tears after getting the news. We had never imagined that such a happy occasion would turn into a tragedy.”