25 migrant workers killed in road accident in Uttar Pradesh

Twenty five migrant workers, including women, were killed and over two dozen others injured in a collision between two trucks in Uttar Pradesh's Auraiya district, about 200 kilometres from here, in the wee hours on Saturday.

According to the police sources here, the injured were admitted to the Saifai PG Medical College Hospital in the neighbouring Etawah district. The death toll could go up as the condition of many of the injured was stated to be ''very critical''.

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Sources said that the mishap occurred when a speeding truck rammed into another stationary mini truck, which was full of migrant workers on way to Gorakhpur from Rajasthan, from behind. While 23 workers died on the spot, one succumbed to his injuries on way to the hospital, sources added.

The migrant workers, who included many women and children, were stated to be the residents of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Sources said that the local villagers were the first to reach the accident site and rescue the injured. They brought out many injured, who were trapped in the mangled debris of the truck, sources said. Senior district officials said that ambulances were rushed to the spot immediately to ferry the injured to the hospital.

UP government suspended two SHOs on charges of laxity and ordered a probe. It also announced an ex-gratia relief of rs. two lakh for each of the kin of the deceased.

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav it was a ''mass murder'' and not an accident. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra also slammed the UP government for not arranging buses to ferry the migrant workers home.

In another mishap, a migrant couple, who worked in Haryana, was killed in a road mishap in Unnao district on Saturday.

More than 50 migrant workers had been killed in different road accidents across UP in the past few days. The highways of the state were full of migrants returning home in UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha from different parts of the country.