Maharashtra: Seven dead, three injured as car falls into roadside well in Jalna

Representative Image. File Photo

Seven people were killed and three injured on Thursday after a taxi veered off the road and fell into a well in Maharashtra's Jalna district. The victims were returning from a pilgrimage to the temple town of Pandharpur, a police official told PTI.

According to the PTI report, the incident took place at 5:30 pm in Vasant Nagar in the district's Badnapur tehsil, the official said.

"The occupants of the taxi were returning from Pandharpur. The deceased have been identified as Narayan Nihal (45), Prahlad Bitle (65), Prahlad Mahajan (65), Nanda Tayde (35), and Chandrabhga Ghuge, who are residents of Chanegaon in Badnapur tehsil, as well as Tarabai Malusare from Bhokardan and Ranjana Kamble (35). Three injured persons have been admitted to the district hospital here," he said.

As per the PTI report, the taxi had 12 occupants, including the driver, and it veered off the road while trying to avoid a motorcycle coming from the opposite direction, the official said.

The official said, "The black-and-yellow taxi fell into a well, trapping some of the occupants as the front doors got jammed. Some of them managed to escape as the taxi began to sink. The road on that stretch does not have guard rails. A crane had to be deployed to extricate the bodies from the car," reported PTI.

In another incident, a Pandharpur-bound bus carrying 'warkaris' or pilgrims hit a tractor on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, leaving at least five people killed and 42 injured, reported PTI on Tuesday.

Notably, tractors are not allowed on the expressway.

The bus was carrying 54 warkaris, devotees of Lord Vitthal, to Pandharpur in Solapur district ahead of the Ashadhi Ekadashi celebrations from Dombivli near Mumbai.

According to deputy commissioner of police Vivek Pansare, the accident took place around midnight near Panvel in Navi Mumbai.

As per the PTI report, the speeding bus hit the tractor from behind while trying to overtake it, police said. Among the five deceased, three were passengers from the bus, while two were persons riding on the tractor, identified as driver Tarvez Salahuddin Ahmed (27) and Deepak Sohan Rajbhar (30).

The deceased bus passengers were identified as Hausabai Hari Patil (65), Ramdas Narayan Mukadam (71) and Gurunath Bapu Patil (65), said the PTI report.

After hitting the tractor, the bus broke through the barricade of the expressway, falling into a 20-foot-deep gorge, an official said.

The injured pilgrims were rushed to a private hospital. As per the PTI report, the condition of seven of them was serious, he said.

The police were probing the causes of the accident and those responsible will face action, the CM said.

(With inputs from PTI)