Four of the six women killed in an accident when an autorickshaw collided with a truck near Golakotivaripalem in Modekurru village of East Godavari on early hours of Saturday, and nine other injured hail from a poor background.
All of them are residents of drinking water tank street in Pillavanigaruvu village and are homemakers. The husbands of the victims are petty vendors and some of them are running shops in Allavaram mandal headquarters.
According to Pilla Satyanarayana, husband of Durga who died in the accident, all the women who are close friends from last several years decided that they should go to Venkateswara Swami temple in Vadapalli every Saturday for four weeks and they hired an auto belonging to Vijaya Bhaskar Rao of Amalapuram.
“First week they had successful journey and this week they woke up around 2 a.m. to get ready and finally the journey claimed their lives”. Sirisha, who was operated in KIMS hospital, said it was totally dark and their auto as well as the truck coming in opposite direction were going at full speed.
“As there is no scope for auto driver to go to the left as there was agriculture canal, he was going on half of the road. The truck collided with our auto and I lost consciousness at that time,” she added.
Auto driver Vijaya Bhaskar Rao has been operated upon for bone fracture and Harshini, 3, was discharged from hospital in the evening. The condition of three other injured women is stated to be out of danger.
The State government has announced ₹5 lakh as compensation to the families of the deceased and ₹1 lakh for the injured. Home Minister N. Chinarajappa, AP Legislative Council in-charge vice-chairman Reddy Subrahmanyam and SP Vishal Gunni have visited the spot and also called on the injured in KIMS hospital.
