Two Class 12 students were mowed down by a truck and three others were seriously injured while they were on their way to coaching classes on bicycles near Sugira village in Mahoba district on Thursday morning.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath expressed grief over the loss of lives in the road accident in Mahoba and directed the administration to provide ex gratia compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the kin of the deceased.
The mishap took place when the victims were hit by a speeding truck on Jhansi-Mirzapur highway under Kulpahar police station on Thursday morning.
The victims were going to attend coaching classes when the accident took place.
Following the accident, the villagers of the area blocked the highway in protest. Senior police and administrative officers rushed to the spot and pacified the angry villagers.
Ravindra Tiwari, in-charge of Mahoba’s Kulpahar police station, said five intermediate students of Sugira village under Kulpahar police station were going to a coaching institute by their cycles in the morning when they were hit by a speeding truck.
Two students, identified as Dharmendra son of Santosh Sahu and Kapil son of Ashok Vishwakarma died on the spot. The condition of three other students was stated to be critical. They were admitted to a local hospital.
A manhunt has been launched to nab the driver who fled the spot.
A government spokesman in Lucknow said the chief minister expressed profound grief over the death of the students and directed officials to ensure proper treatment of those injured.
Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya tweeted that it was very sad to learn about such a heart-wrenching incident.
“Pray to God to give courage and strength to the family of the students who suffered it.” Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also expressed sorrow over the incident.
Meanwhile in Mathura, three labourers hailing from Dhanbad district of Jharkhand died, allegedly after consuming spurious liquor. Reports said that three labourers working in a brick kiln field at Naujheel locality of Mathura were found unconscious. Heavy foam was coming out of their mouths which showed the liquor was poisonous. Their colleagues informed the local police about this after which they were shifted to hospital but two of them were pronounced dead while the third one succumbed a few hours after being admitted in the hospital. Their colleagues suspect that the three consumed liquor together after which they turned unconscious.
The victims were identified as Bheem Babri (35), Rajkumar (32) and Roopchandra (30) . SSP of Mathura Gaurav Grover said that they sent all the three bodies for post-mortem and the cause of death would be only ascertained after the arrival of the autopsy report.