Road mishap toll mounts

VADODARA, May 6: The death toll in the April 30 road mishap near Vadkhal village in Aliba district of Maharashtra has gone up to 11, with...

VADODARA, May 6: The death toll in the April 30 road mishap near Vadkhal village in Aliba district of Maharashtra has gone up to 11, with two more of the injured succumbing to their injuries in Sion Hospital in Mumbai on Wednesday.

They have been identified as 20-year-old Ranjit Sukdar, and 14-year-old Ansuya, both residents of the Jawaharnagar slums behind Pratapnagar railway colony.

Nine people had been killed and seven injured, four of them seriously, when a matador GJ-6-U-1225 carrying 16 people from Vadodara to Dapodi village in Maharashtra had a head-on collision with a speeding truck MH-06-K-918 loaded with empty drums coming from the opposite direction early on April 30.

The dead included matador proprietor Rajaram Uttekar of Salatwada and his driver Santosh Madhukar Kadam. Others who died were 56-year-old Anjiraben Sabkal, Rajendra Ambulkar, a clerk in the Pratapnagar police headquarters, Indraben Ambulkar, Harishchandra Jadav, Ansuya Chavan, Rahul Malusare and Shankar Sukdar.

According to Santosh Sabkal, all the 16 people were going to attend the May 2 wedding of a relative of Sukdar8217;s.

Talking to Express Newsline, he said relatives of the victims could not have known about the accident immediately but for an identity card recovered by Vadkhal police from Rajendra Ambulkar8217;s pocket. The identity card bore the address of the Vadodara police commissionerate on the basis of which the Maharashtra police contacted Vadodara city police.

While Anjiraben Sabkal was cremated in her native village in Maharashtra, the remaining bodies were brought to Vadodara by relatives, Sabkal said.

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Truck driver Nawab Mehmood Chougule was arrested and a case for causing death due to negligence booked against him in Vadkhal police station, according to Sabkal.