BERHAMPUR/PHULBANI: At least six persons, including an eight-year-old boy, were killed in separate road accidents in Kandhamal, Gajapati and Mayurbhanj districts in the past 24 hours.
Three youths from Nabarangpur district were killed in a suspected hit-and-run accident near Mahasingh bridge under Baliguda police limits in Kandhamal district late on Friday night. The accident occurred between 10.30 pm and 11 pm, when the trio was travelling on a motorcycle from Baliguda towards Mahasingh. Police suspect a private bus rammed the motorcycle before fleeing the scene.
Initially, the victims could not be identified as they were not local residents. Police recovered an Aadhaar card from one of the victims, leading to the identification of one of the deceased, following which the other two were also identified. Police said preliminary investigation indicated that a private bus, going from Kalahandi to Bhubaneswar, was the only vehicle that had passed through the spot around the time of the accident. Police have launched efforts to trace and seize the bus. Police suspect they may have consumed alcohol before the mishap, though they said the exact cause would be established only after a detailed investigation. The bodies were sent for postmortem.
A 40-year-old man and his eight-year-old son were killed on the spot, while his wife sustained injuries after a speeding truck rammed into the auto-rickshaw they were travelling in while returning home from the Karanjia sub-divisional hospital near Kalika-Karanj chowk on NH-220 in Mayurbhanj district on Saturday.
The deceased and the injured were residents of Saradha village under Badagaon gram panchayat within Karanjia police limits. Sources said the couple’s son had been suffering from fever for the past few days and they had taken him to the hospital for treatment on Saturday morning. After the medical consultation, the family was returning home in an auto-rickshaw when the accident occurred.
The truck driver fled the scene immediately after the accident, and police have launched an investigation to trace the vehicle and apprehend the accused.
Meanwhile, a 32-year-old man was killed and two others were critically injured in a head-on collision between two motorcycles on NH-326 near Hikirikupa village under Mohana police limits in Gajapati district in the early hours of Saturday. Police said the man was travelling towards Mohana from his village when his motorcycle collided head-on with another bike. The collision threw all three riders nearly 20 feet before they hit boulders along the roadside. Mohana police registered a case and sent the body for postmortem.
