Buried alive on illegal journey

The accident happened on the Pune-Solapur Highway at Yevat,50 km from Pune. The 19 killed included five boys,four girls and six women; 15 others were injured.

Most of them were labourers,some from Bidar in Karnataka and some from Solapur. The truck had been ferrying around 45 passengers illegally.

The Yevat police said the truck was travelling from Mumbai towards Solapur. Around 12.30 am,it went out of control,overturned and landed in a field,leaving its illegal passengers trapped under the load.

Shoes and slippers,clothes,iron pipes,broken glass,stove,clothes and toothpaste tubes lay strewn around the spot.

By the time a team of 35 from Yevat police station reached the spot,the driver and the cleaner of the truck had fled. They have been booked under various sections.

The victims were taken first to a hospital nearby,then shifted to Anand Hospital and Shaktichaya Hospital in Yevat. “Most of the dead had head injuries,broken bones and internal injuries,” said Santosh Jawale,who works at the post-mortem centre at Yevat.

Nearly 100 stunned relatives gathered at the post-mortem centre. Shravan Kamble was inconsolable after losing brother-in-law Baban Malkappa Kamble. “Baban was going to meet his wife and children at Bilgonda in Karnataka. He was supporting his wife and five children with his meagre earnings as a labourer.”

One of the survivors,11-year-old Sagar Kamble from Chakan,said,“I was sleeping on the pipes at the back and did not even realise it when the truck turned turtle. I too fell under the pipes,but survived.”

Sagar was travelling to Bidar for the summer holidays with his uncle Laxman Kamble. He is undergoing treatment at Anand Hospital.

Of the dead,Baban Malkappa Kamble (36) was from Gulbarga. So were Karnal Mullavale (50),Imamsaab Shaikh (40),Ibrahim Shaikh (45),Fatima Shaikh (12),Abbasali Shaikh (9),Raza Abbasali Shaikh (4),Shabana Imamsab Shaikh (11) and Naltabi Imamsab Shaikh (35).

The other dead include Reshma Pathan (21),Simran Pathan (1) and Sohail Mubarak Shaikh (1) of Solapur,Savita Gawli (40) and Vishal Gawli (15) of Kurla in Mumbai,Mahananda Shinde (40) of Mumbai,Nasima Shabbir Shaikh (35),Ammid Shabbir Shaikh (7) and Anjum Shabbir Shaikh (10) of Adarshnagar,Bopodi,in Pune,besides Rekha Suresh Khandagale (35) of Kasarwadi in Pune.