Helper trucks with accident, driver dead

One person was killed and 34 were injured in a road accident at Lajpat Nagar early on Wednesday morning.

One person was killed and 34 were injured in a road accident at Lajpat Nagar early on Wednesday morning.

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A speeding container truck overshot a divider and collided with a bus. A Tata Indica, which was behind the bus, failed to swerve away on time. It hit the bus from behind.

Fifty-year-old Buddhi Ram — the truck driver who apparently let his 23-year-old helper Karni Singh take to the wheels — died in the accident.

Singh survived.

Rakesh Yadav, who was driving his Indica, and 32 bus passengers were also injured.

“We rushed them to the AIIMS Trauma Centre where many were discharged after treatment,” said a senior police officer. Not authorised to talk to media, he did not want to be named.

Singh, waiting at the police station with a bandaged head, said, “I lost control of the truck and it jumped to the other side of the road."

A case of negligence has been registered against him.

The police took over three hours to clear the road.

“I had boarded the bus to go to Gurgaon from a Delhi bus station,” an injured bus passenger, Anil Rawat, said. “When the incident occurred I was sleeping. I woke up in the hospital and saw I was bleeding.”