6 migrants among 7 killed as truck collide with auto in Mathura

AGRA: At least seven persons, including six migrant labourers, who were stranded in Uttar Pradesh and were returning to their native place in MP, were killed when a truck collided with the auto in which they were travelling in Mathura on Monday.
The victims’ kin said that they had boarded the auto on hearing about an MP-bound bus set to depart on Monday night. The deceased were identified as Ram Sakhi, 33, and her two minor daughters Roshni, 14 and Laxmi, 5, and their relatives Kailash, 20, Shivaran, 17 and Ruchi, 8 and the auto driver, Madan Mohan.
Talking to TOI, Circle Officer in Govardhan, Jitendra Kumar, said the accident took place around 8 pm on Tuesday nightnear Umri village. The labourers were travelling towards Jajan Patti area in the district after being told by someone that they would get a bus from there to Chhatarpur. However, there was no bus scheduled for MP, confirmed Kumar.
He said that truck laden with watermelons collided with the auto, killing the migrant workers, and the auto driver. Another migrant, Laxmi (27) and her two-year-old girl, Mohini, were injured. They were admitted in a district hospital for treatment and their condition was stated to be critical. The truck driver reportedly fled from the spot, said police.
According to Manish Kumar, whose maternal aunt, Ram Sakhi, died in the mishap, all the labourers, who were known to each other, had decided to travel together for their proposed journey to Chhatrapur.
Several such incidents have been reported in the past when migrant workers have lost their lives in road mishaps on their way home from their places of work.
On May 1, three migrant workers were killed in a road accident, when a truck rammed into the tractor-trolley, when they had reached Aligarh. They had started their foot march from Delhi to Fatehpur in UP and after walking for over 125 kilometre, a tractor driver agreed to transport them a few kilometres.
On March 28, four migrant workers, who were walking back to Vasai after the police stopped at Bhillad on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border were killed after being run over by a truck at Virar on Saturday. The four were part of a group of seven who were trying to reach their villages in Rajasthan after crossing into Gujarat. The other three sustained injuries.
On March 27, eight people from Karnataka, including a 3-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl were killed and three people sustained severe injuries on the Outer Ring Road (ORR) in Shamshabad highway in Hyderabad after a mango-laden lorry rammed into the maxi truck they were travelling in. The maxi truck was carrying 31 migrant labourers who were engaged with a road infrastructure firm at Suryapet.