Five persons, including three children, belonging to Ranga Reddy district, were killed and nine others injured when a mini bus rammed into a parked tractor near Khanagudur in Duvvur mandal of Kadapa district in the wee hours of Wednesday.
Gattu Venkateswarlu, 35, Vijayalakshmi, 40, Greeshma, 10, Sai Moses, 10 and Arijith, 5, died instantly as the mini-bus hit the median and rammed into the tractor, according to Mydukur Urban Circle Inspector Y. Venkateswarlu.
Muslims to the rescue
Muslims, who came to a nearby mosque for Ramzan prayers, alerted the police and brought the injured out of the mini bus.
Police shifted the injured persons — Srinivasa Reddy, 40, Ramesh, 49, Swarnamma, 58, Latha, 38, Lakshmi, 36, Siva, 5, Harini, 17, Sunny, 11 and Harika, 19 — in ambulances to the Kurnool General Hospital.
The family members of Venkateswarlu of Ibrahimpatnam and Srinivasa Reddy of Uppal and relatives left on Friday last by the mini bus on a tour of Bengaluru, Mysuru and other places in Karnataka.
They had darshan in the Tirumala temple on Tuesday night and began their return journey.
‘Driver dozed off’
The driver, Boinpally Bhanuprakash, belonging to Talakondapalle in Mahabubnagar district, took a nap at Mydukur and proceeded further.
The accident took place when the driver dozed off, Mr. Venkateswarlu said and added that he was taken into custody.
Kadapa Superintendent of Police P.H.D. Ramakrishna, Mydukur DSP B.R. Sreenivasulu, Deputy Transport Commissioner Basi Reddy and Mr. Venkateswarlu inspected the accident scene. The Duvvur police registered a case.
In another accident in Nellore district, four persons were killed when the autorickshaw in which they were travelling was hit by an RTC bus coming in the opposite direction on an interior road near Karikadu in the Sullurupeta area.
Four persons were injured. About 10 workers engaged in cutting forest wood were travelling in the auto at the time of mishap.
The deceased were identified as Doodala Seshaiah, 54, Tupa Nagaiah, 29, Peda Subrahmanyam, 45, and Chiluka Chandraiah, 52. Nagaiah, autodriver, died on the spot along with Seshaiah as they were in the front and received grievous injuries.
The bus was on its way from Sullurupeta to Karikadu.
The injured were admitted to a hospital at Sullurupeta.
