Six persons dead as lorry crashes into van at Kurnool

Six persons were killed while 15 suffered grievous injuries after a truck crashed into a stationary van near Kurnool on Wednesday.

According to Kurnool SP Gopinath Jatti, a group of 21 persons — all from the same family —- were on their way to Ellarthi Dargah in Adoni from Old Town in Kurnool.

The driver of the van was repairing the vehicle after a technical snag brought it to a grinding halt near Peddahothur, about 6 km from Aluru. While the rest of the family got down, six persons stayed back in the van.

Soon, a lorry rammed into the stationary van in a typical hit-and-run case. The impact of the accident was such that all six persons were killed on the spot. The deceased persons have been identified as Fathima (26), Khaja (24), Hussain (23), Asif (17), Asrar (9), and Mehek



(7).

Local police rushed to the spot and shifted the injured persons to the government hospital at Aluru . A case was registered and police said efforts are on to trace the vehicle which is reportedly headed towards Bellary in Karnataka.

Meanwhile, Kurnool district collector S Satyanarayana and Rajya Sabha MP TG Venkatesh rushed to the Aluru government hospital where a post-mortem was conducted on the six deceased. They assured the injured persons of all support from the government.

The state government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs.5 lakh to the families of the deceased if they were covered under the NTR Arogya Seva scheme. But if not covered under the insurance scheme, the state government will hand over a sum of Rs.2 lakh to the families of the deceased as compensation.