MUMBAI: Ironically, major highways of Maharashtra turned into a death trap and took 23 lives in four different accidents on Monday, hours after union transport minister Nitin Gadkari pulled up the babus over incomplete work.
Eleven passengers travelling from Tryambakeshwar to Pune died at around 1.30 am on Monday when their bus rammed into a stationary truck near Narayangaon in Pune district. The truck owner was trying to change a flat tyre when the ill fated state transport corporation bus rammed into it. Around 20 passengers sustained severe injuries in the accident.
Widening of Nashik-Pune Highway into a four-lane road is incomplete near Narayangaon, which might have lead to the accident, local sources said.
While speaking at a function at Pune on Sunday Union transport minister Niton Gadkari had blamed the officials from his own department for causing delays in highway repairs.
The accident at Narayangaon was the second accident within hours of Gadkari's public admonition of the officials. Earlier in the day another MSRTC bus had rammed into a truck near Shindewadi on Pune-Satara highway. Though there were no causalities reported in the accident, other two accidents in Nashik district were not so fortunate.
In an accident on Yeola-Manmad highway in Nashik district 10 people lost lives when an SUV rammed into a Maruti Omni and a bus coming from opposite direction last evening, while Onion merchant Indar Chopra and his employee Sanjay Thube were killed when their car was hit by an unknown vehicle on the Manmad-Malegaon highway in the early hours on Monday.