BHUBANESWAR: An elderly couple was killed after being by a speeding truck at Palasuni here on Wednesday morning.
Umesh Prasad Panigrahy (66) and his wife Nalini (22) were natives of Gandabahal village in Sonepur district and had arrived here on their way to Puri to offer prayers at Shree Jagannath Temple.
As per police, the couple were crossing the road when they were hit by the truck going towards Cuttack. They had possibly planned to board a bus to reach the temple town via Puri by-pass road. The couple was rushed to a hospital where the doctors declared them received dead.
The truck driver managed to flee along with the vehicle and police have launched a search operation to nab him. Palasuni has become infamous for frequent road accidents as buses and auto-rickshaws can regularly be seen on the middle of the roads to pick-up and drop the passengers.
Road accidents and fatalities arising out of them have been witnessing an increasing trend in the last few years. In the wake of rise in such mishaps, Transport Department had asked the Collectors in March to identify the locations which are vulnerable to road accidents.
