At least 23 passengers were injured, 11 of them seriously, after a private bus they were travelling in hit a heavy vehicle on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway near Lonavala in Pune district early on Thursday, police said.
The bus was travelling to Borivali in Mumbai from Kolhapur in western Maharashtra when the accident took place around 5 am, they said.
"It appears that the driver of the bus dozed off, which resulted in it hitting a heavy vehicle, like a container or a trailer, from behind. While 11 of the passengers were seriously injured, 12 others sustained minor injuries," a police official from Lonavala said.
All the injured passengers were admitted to a hospital and are currently undergoing treatment, he said.
