Silchar: Two persons died and 25 others were injured, several of them critically, after a passenger bus collided head-on with a speeding dumper on NH-6 in Assam’s Sribhumi district early Saturday morning, police said.The accident occurred around 6am when the bus, carrying nearly 50 passengers, lost control after the collision and fell into a roadside ditch.
The vehicle was left mangled, triggering panic among passengers.Two passengers who died on the spot were identified as Niranjan Das (50) and Tapan Biswas (52). Among the injured are five children, with seven persons stated to be in critical condition.Local residents, assisted by police personnel, took the injured to the Sribhumi govt hospital and Silchar Medical College and Hospital. Doctors said several injured patients have been kept under intensive observation.Police seized both vehicles and an investigation has been launched.Preliminary findings point to overspeeding of both the vehicles as the likely cause of the collision.According to sources, all the victims are residents of Nagaon district. They were travelling by the Guwahati-Sairang train and had disembarked at Badarpur railway station. From there, they hired the traveller bus to reach Bazaricherra in Sribhumi district to attend a religious ‘kirtan’ programme.The incident has cast a pall of gloom over the area, with local residents demanding stricter enforcement of traffic rules and measures to curb reckless driving on highways to prevent such tragedies.
