Ten tourists killed as bus tramples them

Midnapore, June 9 (UNI) Ten tourists were crushed to death today under the wheels of the bus they were travelling in, as a loaded trailor truck rammed into the stationary bus.

The tourists were travelling in two buses, one out of which was being repaired for some technical snag. The passengers were standing outside of the bus, watching the ongoing repair work, while standing in between the two buses, when the incident occurred.

A trailor truck came from behind and knocked down the rear bus which ploughed over the passengers standing in front and sandwiched them between the two buses, resulting in death of the passengers at Basantapur near Kharagpur on National Highway 6, West Midnapore district Superintendent of Police R Rajashekharan said.

The tourist bus was returning from Puri to Kolkata.

While six of them died on the spot, two died on their way to the hospital and the remaining two in Midnapore Medical College and Hospital, police said.

According to hospital sources, the condition of six out of the 17 injured is stated to be critical.

About 80 residents of Haroa under North 24 Parganas district were returning from Puri after their pilgrimage in two buses.

Hearing a big bang, the local villagers rushed to the spot and with the help of Kharagpur local police rushed the bodies to the nearby Midnapur Medical College and Hospital.

The driver and the helper of the trailor fled away leaving behind the vehicle.

Haroa MLA Kanti Ganguly MLA and CPM leader rushed to the medical college to supervise the treatment of the injured.

The deceased were Mrintunjoy Karmakar(27), Sukumar Biswas(36), Sunil Naskar(36), Sanatan Pal(21), Jalil Molla(30), Arup Dasgupta(25), Shantibala Palit(62), Dwijen Ghosh(48), Alif Sardar(52), Sunil Karmakar(36).

UNI