Hyderabad, January 29: Eight persons were feared killed and 15 others injured when a lorry crushed two auto-rickshaws, including a seven-seater, three motorcycles and a bicycle on the dangerous Nagole-L B Nagar route here on Friday night.
According to police, the driver of the lorry, who was on his way to Uppal from LB Nagar, lost control of the vehicle near the Nagole crossroads around 9.15 p.m. Within seconds, he hit a bicycle, two motorists and went on to crush a seven-seater as well as an auto-rickshaw.
Shocked pedestrians ran helter-skelter as the lorry dragged one of the autos up to a few metres before screeching to a halt. The lorry driver immediately fled from the spot. Eye-witnesses said eight passengers were travelling in the seven-seater alone. They were pulled out from under the lorry. “Some of them are dead,” an eyewitness told Express. However, police put the toll at two.
LB Nagar police sub-inspector K Balraj said several injured were shifted to different hospitals including Gandhi, Osmania, Kamineni and another private hospital, Lakshmi Narasimha hospital, by the locals before the police had arrived.
Tension gripped the locality as the locals set ablaze the lorry and staged a dharna holding the driver and the traffic police responsible for the tragedy.
As the protest took a violent turn, additional forces, including CRPF personnel, were rushed to bring the situation under control.
-Agencies