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Six pilgrims die in road mishap near Balachaur
Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

Hamiri Khera (Jalandhar), August 13
Six residents of this village were killed and 22 others injured in a road accident at Rail Majra village, near Balachaur, late last night.

The residents were returning in a tractor-trailer from a two-day tour of religious places in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab when their vehicle was allegedly hit by a truck on the Chandigarh-Jalandhar highway around 11.30 p.m.

The driver of the truck was also killed in the mishap. Five of the deceased belonged to one family.

A group of 28 residents had left the village on August 11 to visit the Baba Badbhag Singh dera at Mairi in Himachal Pradesh and gurdwaras at Anandpur Sahib and Machhiwara.

The deceased were identified as Malkit Singh (60), his wife Gurmej Kaur (50), his 19-year-old grandson Harjinder Singh, his daughter-in-law Kulwinder Kaur (30), his granddaughter Lovepreet (6) and Dayal Singh (50), a labourer from the village. The driver of the truck was identified as Sohan Singh of Bikkon village in Ropar district.

Some of those travelling in the tractor-trailer had a miraculous escape, including the three children of Kulwinder Kaur — Jagga (5), Gurpreet Kaur (8) and eight-month-old Mani.

When The Tribune team reached the village, most of the villagers had converged on the houses of Malkit Singh and Dayal Singh, where the bodies were brought around 5 p.m. Veena, 18-year-old daughter of Dayal Singh, who was travelling with her father, said, “I cannot recall how it happened. I heard a bang after which I was hurled in the air and landed with a thud. Doctors at Ropar told me that I had broken my back.”

Narinder Kaur, mother of Harjinder Singh, said she tried to stop her son from going but he insisted that he would accompany the elders to religious places.

Ram Ditta, a 75-year-old resident of the village, said he had never seen such a tragedy befall the village before. “None of us has cooked or eaten food since we came to know about the tragic incident,” he said.

Sukhdev Singh, the driver of the tractor-trailer, who escaped unhurt, claimed that the truck coming from the opposite direction hit the tractor-trailer and dragged it to some distance.