E-Paper
6 dead as bus speeding on wrong side rams into car on Delhi-Meerut e-way
Six members of a family were killed and two others injured when their vehicle collided with a speeding bus driving on the wrong side of the road in Ghaziabad, India. The incident highlights the dangers of traffic violations such as speeding and driving on the wrong side of the road. The bus driver has been arrested and an investigation is underway.
Six members of a family, on their way from Meerut to the Khatu Shyam temple in Rajasthan, were killed and two others were injured when their vehicle collided with a speeding bus that was being driven on the wrong side of the carriageway on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway near Behrampur in Ghaziabad on Tuesday.
The incident was caught on CCTV cameras — it showed the bus veering into the Mahindra TUV 300 even as the latter tried to change lanes at the last minute — once again bringing into focus how some of the most basic traffic violations such as jumping red lights, speeding, and particularly driving on the wrong side of the road in an attempt to save time, lead to some of the worst accidents on Indian roads.
“It was a huge impact due to a head-on collision. The bus was driven at high speed when it hit the SUV. Six people including three children died on the spot, while two were rushed to a hospital for treatment. The police had to deploy cutters to remove some of bodies. The driver of the bus was arrested and an FIR was registered at Crossings Republik police station,” said Ravi Prakash Singh, additional commissioner of police (Wave City).
Police said that they also recovered a flip board from the bus with the name of a private school on it, suggesting that the bus was also used to ferry schoolchildren. The owner of the bus, which is part of the fleet of the local travel company Chaudhary Tours and Travels Private Limited, later said that it was not deployed with the school for the last two years.
The driver, Prem Pal Singh, a native of Aligarh, was booked under IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), and 427 (causing damages). Singh, aged around 45 years, was the only person in the bus at the time of the accident, officials said.
The victims were identified as Narendra Yadav, 45, who ran an electrical business at Dhanpur in Meerut, his wife Anita, 42, and their two sons, Deepanshu, 17, and Himanshu, 14. Yadav’s sister-in-law Babita, 37, and niece Vanshika, 8, were also killed in the accident. His brother Dharmendra, 40, and nephew Karthik, 5, survived, and are in hospital.
“The entire family of one of my cousins was killed, while the wife and daughter of my other cousin were killed. They left home in Meerut around 4am for darshan at Khatu Shyam temple in Sikar. They were to have breakfast at their sister’s house in Gurugram,” said Sanjay Yadav, who spoke to the media as a representative of the bereaved family.
According to Ghaziabad’s additional DCP (traffic) Ramanand Kushwaha, the bus stopped at a CNG station in Ghazipur in Delhi, and entered the wrong lane of the DME to avoid taking a U-turn.
But officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said that videos available with them showed that the bus entered the wrong carriageway near Indirapuram in Ghaziabad. According to them, it travelled for over 7.2km, which it covered in 5-6 minutes, before ramming into the car.
“The bus and the car were driven at speeds of about 90-100km per hour. The bus entered the expressway from Indirapuram and the traffic police at the entry/exit point should have stopped the driver. The bus travelled about 7.2km before hitting the car. The incident was also captured in the CCTVs of the DME which are installed every 500 metres. Our patrolling vehicles were also deployed on DME but they were at another location,” said an NHAI officialwho asked not to be named.
The prescribed speed limit on the expressway is 100kmph.
The bus, with a Noida registration plate, bore the name “Chaudhary Tours and Travels (P) Ltd” on the rear along with threetelephone numbers. When contacted, an official from Chaudhary Tours, said: “The bus was ferrying school children till the lockdown, and later it started ferrying employees of a private company in Noida. The bus driver left Noida on Tuesday morning to pick up company staff from Nandnagri in Delhi. Near Indirapuram, there were some diversions due to Kanwar Yatra, and police stopped him from proceeding further. Thereafter, he took a wrong turn on DME. The driver has been with us for the past several years.” This official asked not to be named.
Additional DCP Kushwahasaid that the bus had an “on school duty” card at the time but was ferrying staff of a company in Noida. “Although the bus did not work for the school any longer, it still displayed the card,” he said.
The officer also suggested that the accident may have been averted.
“Our staff is deployed along major spots of the expressway for Kanwar Yatra duties. NHAI officials could have alerted us about the wrong side driven bus but there was no such alert,” he added.
NHAI officials, in turn, said it was the police that should have intervened or alerted them.
According to the transport enforcement department in Noida, regular drives against erring vehicles are conducted in the region.
“Many bigger vehicles have strayed on different routes due to recent Kanwar Yatra diversions. The police have initiated action and we will also take suitable legal action into the incident. We conduct regular drives to trace the erring vehicles and launch another drive against such vehicles,” said additional regional transport officer (enforcement, Noida) Deepak Shah.
He said that their records showed the fitness, insurance, and other documents of the bus were valid. The bus had at least 19 challans in its name — for contravention of speed limit, not following traffic directions, driving without license, failure to use seat belt, and violation of parking rules — since 2018.
