5 dead as SUV collides with dumper in Karnal

Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, March 14

Tragedy struck this morning, when five youngsters, including three girls, were killed and two others seriously injured, after the SUV they were travelling in rammed into a dumper truck near Sector 6 on the NH-1 in the city, today.

The deceased were identified as Sonali (21), a resident of Sector-21, Sonipat; Sanjana (22), a resident of Sector-12, Sonipat, Yatin (22) and Aman (21), both residents of Gannaur and Neha (22), a resident of Gumarvi village in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh. Two others, Tarun of Sonipat and Ruby of Gangot village in Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh, were critically injured. While Tarun was shifted to Sonipat, Ruby was referred to PGI, Chandigarh, said Vikrant Kumar, in-charge of Sector 6 police station.

On Saturday morning, Sonali, Sanjana, Neha, Tarun and Ruby, all BSc final year students of DAV College, Chandigarh, had taken a bus to Sonipat to attend the funeral of Sonali’s father, who had passed away on Friday evening.

Meanwhile, Yatin and Aman, who had come from Gannaur in their SUV, Duster, to take them along reached Karnal and asked them to get down at the ITI Chowk in the city, said the Sector-6 police post in-charge.

He added after picking their friends up from ITI Chowk, the group left for Sonipat around 5:30am. When they were between the Sector-6 flyover and the under-construction flyover at Devi Lal Chowk, the SUV hit a dumper, at the construction site.

Such was the impact that the SUV was completely mangled. The police rushed to the spot, while the passersby rescued the injured from the damaged vehicle and took them to the Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College Hospital, where five of them were declared brought dead. The bodies were handed over to the kin of the deceased after the post-mortem exam.

SP Abhishek Garg said, “The police have registered a case against dumper driver Amarnath, a resident of Madhya Pradesh, under sections 279, 337, 304A of the IPC. Efforts are being made to nab the accused.”