Jajpur: Two persons were killed while eight others sustained varying degrees of injuries when the auto-rickshaw they were travelling by was hit by a speeding truck on the National Highway No 16 near Manikuili Sharma petrol pump under Panikhoili police limits in Odisha’s Jajpur district in the early hours of Tuesday.
According to the injured auto-rickshaw driver Lalit Kumar Naik, the accident occurred when he was transporting 10 people from three families from Sahapada village in Bhadrak district to Puri for the darshan of Lord Jagannath and his sibling deities.
The deceased include a 20-year-old girl, Pooja Sahu from the Simulia area in Bhadrak, and an 11-year-old boy, Shivendra Mahapatra from the Bisam area in Cuttack. All the injured have been admitted to Jajpur District Headquarters Hospital (DHH). As the condition of the two injured deteriorated, they were shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.
As the news of the fatal accident spread, the voluntary organisation Helping Hand Group reached the spot and rescued the victims, and rushed them to Jajpur DHH. They also informed the police about the incident.
The police recovered the two dead bodies and sent them for post-mortem at the Jajpur DHH. An investigation has been launched into the incident.
