ROURKELA: Five persons were killed and five others were injured when a speeding Maruti Omni van carrying them rammed into a stationary road trailer between Taparia and Goikanpali road in Sundargarh district during the wee hours on Saturday.
According to Hemgir police station IIC Prashant Sahu, those travelling in the car belonged to a ‘kirtan’ troupe of Kandaduda and Samarpinda villages of Hemgir block and were returning after performing at an event in the Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh. The police are yet to identify the deceased.
Bodies of the deceased were taken for autopsy and the injured were admitted to a hospital here.
Tension prevailed on the spot on Saturday when the locals have staged a blockade demanding the Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL) to construct a coal corridor and necessary compensation for the bereaved families. The Taparia road, which passes through several villages, is used by heavy vehicles for transporting coal from various MCL coal mines in Hemgir to Chhattisgarh.
DIG of Police (Western Range) Brijesh Kumar Rai said that the driver of the van dashed against the stationary road trailer either due to poor visibility or judgment of error.
He further said that he has given instructions to ICs of respective police stations to carry out night patrolling, issue challan for illegal roadside parking, tow erratically parked vehicles and hand them over to Regional Transport Officers(RTO) concerned for further action. An instruction on this matter would be the given to various associations of truck, tipper and road trailer owners to help minimize road fatalities, he added.