In a tragic incident, five children, including three girls, were killed and forty-one others injured on Saturday in Chhattisgarh’s Gariaband district when an overcrowded tractor trolley overturned on its way to a religious site, police said.
The incident took place in afternoon near Sorid village under Fingeshwar police station limits when as many as 73 students of Government middle school, Rajakatti village were travelling in the tractor trolley to Sonai Dhapai goddess temple to offer prayers in the ongoing ‘Navratri’ festival.
Gariaband district collector Niranjan Das informed that nine seriously injured students were rushed to Raipur where they had been put in at State’s biggest Government hospital.
Das said that three teachers of the school had been suspended and police were trying to track down the driver who ran away after the heart-rending road accident.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh condemned the incident and announced Rs1 lakh compensation to family members of the deceased students.
Reports say that students were accompanied by teachers of the school but they fled from the spot after the incident. A case has been registered in this connection.