A Delhi-Mumbai Expressway crash near Dhunela in Gurugram killed a couple and their seven-year-old daughter early Thursday, while an eight-year-old boy and his one-year-old sister were rescued alive from the wreckage, police said.
The family’s Maruti Swift rammed into a stationary private bus between 3 am and 3.30 am near the junction with the Sohna elevated road. The bus had reportedly broken down earlier and was left on the elevated corridor after its driver abandoned it, according to police.
The impact pushed the car underneath the bus, crushing its front section and passenger cabin. Commuters who noticed the collision alerted the police control room. Personnel from Gurugram Police’s Emergency Response Vehicle ERV-235, firefighters and local rescue teams reached the site and used a crane to pull the car out from beneath the bus.
Rescue workers spent nearly an hour speaking to the children trapped inside the mangled vehicle in an effort to keep them conscious during the operation. A senior police official said the children were eventually extricated safely and taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where doctors said they were out of danger.
The children’s parents, Bum Prasad, 38, and Roopa, 35, were taken to the government hospital in Sohna along with their seven-year-old daughter. Doctors declared all three dead on arrival. The family was originally from Bihar and lived in Rajokri in Southwest Delhi.
Police said the family had been returning home after visiting a Balaji temple in Dausa, Rajasthan. Inspector Satpal, station house officer of the Bhondsi police station, said the relatives had been informed about the deaths.
The crash has also raised immediate questions about the safety management of disabled vehicles on an expressway, where a stationary obstruction can become difficult to detect during night-time travel. The police account did not state whether warning lights, reflective markings or other safeguards had been placed around the abandoned bus.
No arrests had been made when the report was published. Police teams were tracing the driver and owner of the bus, and further action was expected to follow the investigation into how the vehicle was left on the expressway and the circumstances of the collision.
