Seven of family dead as bus rams into sleeping pilgrims

Seven members of a family were killed when a bus rammed into a group of sleeping pilgrims near Narora on Friday morning, police said.

They said the driver of the bus was on the run.

Senior Superintendent of Police Santosh Kumar Singh said the victims, who were residents of Chandpa, had gone on a pilgrimage to the Vaishno Devi shrine along with some relatives and other villagers.

While returning, they got off from from the bus in Narora and slept on the road along Gandhi Ganga Ghat. At around 4 am, another bus that was also carrying pilgrims crushed the victims to death, the official said.

After receiving information about the incident, Dibai Circle Officer Vikram Singh and Dibai Sub-Divisional Magistrate Sanjay Kumar reached the spot.

Locals gathered there and protested against the accident. Police talked to the people and send the bodies for postmortem.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed grief over the incident and announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the kin of the deceased.

He said those responsible should be punished strictly.

The deceased were identified as Phoolwati (65), Mala Devi (32), Sheela Devi (35), Yogita (5), Kalpana (4), Renu (22) and Sanjana (4).