Among 6 killed in UP accident, 4 friends on bike who tried to overtake truck

LUCKNOW: Four men, childhood friends returning home on a motorcycle after attending a wedding, were among the six people killed in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjanpur district when they tried to overtake a truck and collided with an oncoming van, police said on Tuesday.

The accident took place at about 2am on Tuesday on the Katra-Jalalabad Road near Barkheda in Shahjanpur district, superintendent of police (SP) Rajesh Dwivedi said.

The four men, aged between 18 and 22, were identified as Ravi, Aakash, Dinesh and Abhishek.

They were returning after attending a wedding of Ravi’s cousin in the Kaanth area when the accident took place.

Police said the bike was speeding and crashed through the Maruti van Echo’s windscreen, leading to severe injuries to the car driver and the co-passenger. The occupants of the van were stuck in the vehicle for quite some time and it took people a long time to pull them out of the vehicle.

Dwivedi said Sudhir Kumar, who was driving the van and the co-passenger, Sonu, a daily wage labourer, who were coming from Bareilly, were also killed in the accident. The other two passengers are being treated at the Shahjanpur Medical College.

Three persons are learnt to have died on the spot and were formally declared dead at the Madnapur Community Health Centre. Abhishek succumbed to his injuries at Shahjahanpur Medical College.

Aakash’s father Raju told reporters that his son had been friends with Ravi, Dinesh and Abhishek since they were little and had left to attend the marriage.