New Delhi: Three relatives of an Indian Army soldier and an ambulance driver were killed when the vehicle carrying his body home collided with a stationary truck on Uttar Pradesh’s Purvanchal Expressway on Sunday. The family was accompanying the remains of Subedar Major Satyawan Singh to Deoria when the crash occurred in Sultanpur district on Sunday morning, police said.
The collision took place around 8am near the expressway’s 79.6-kilometre marker in the Haliyapur area, close to the Ayodhya-Sultanpur border. According to media reports, the ambulance went out of control before striking a truck parked beside the road.
Those killed included Singh’s son, Gaurav, two relatives identified in reports as Ram Samujh and Rajan, and the driver, Jaspal. While reports agreed that the soldier’s son, brother and nephew were among the victims, they differed over the ages and precise relationships of the other two relatives.
Singh, 50, belonged to the Rudrapur area of Deoria and had been posted in Meerut, according to police accounts. He had died after receiving treatment for kidney disease at the Command Hospital in Chandigarh, and his relatives were bringing his body back for the funeral.
The impact crushed the front of the ambulance, trapping occupants inside the wreckage and forcing rescuers to cut open the vehicle. Two people, including the driver, died at the scene, while the other two succumbed to their injuries at a hospital in Ayodhya district, according to the police.
The police were examining whether the driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. That remained a preliminary suspicion, with investigators also checking footage from expressway cameras to establish the sequence of events.
Other members of Singh’s family were travelling in a separate vehicle behind the ambulance. Their journey home therefore became the scene of a second bereavement, with three relatives killed while accompanying the soldier’s remains.
Police sent the crash victims’ bodies for post-mortem examinations, while arrangements were made for their onward journey to Deoria. The district magistrate, Indrajeet Singh, said the administration was coordinating with officials in Deoria and the Army to complete the formalities and assist the family.