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A state transport bus mowed down six students and a teacher on the Lucknow-Agra Expressway in Kannauj district early Monday. Two others were seriously injured in the incident. The driver was arrested later in the day.
Around 100 students and teachers from Prabha Devi PG College in Santkabir Nagar district were on an expedition tour to Haridwar. They were waiting on the roadside while their vehicle was being refuelled, when the speeding bus ran some of them over.
“At around 3.10 am on Monday, a bus carrying students was parked on the roadside since it had run out of fuel. The driver and some students were getting diesel transferred from another bus. Other students and teachers too were standing on the roadside when a bus passing by hit ten of them and sped away. Six of them, including a teacher, died on the spot. Another student died on the way to the hospital,” said Kannauj SP Rathod Kirit Kumar Haribhai.
Police teams were immediately engaged to trace the bus and driver, the SP said.
A team from Talgram police station spotted the vehicle (UP 77 AN 1962) in their area and arrested the driver, Brijesh Kumar, he added.
The deceased — identified as Vijay Kumar, Abhay Pratap Singh, Mithilesh Kumar, Vishal Kumar and Satish from Sant Kabir Nagar and Jitendra Kumar from Gorakhpur — were aged between 26 and 27 years.
The deceased teacher was identified as Mahesh Kumar Gupta (45), also a resident of Sant Kabir Nagar.
Bus conductor Chintaharan and Pramod Bharti, a student, were admitted to the Government Medical College in Tirwa area of Kannauj.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced an ex-gratia amount of Rs 2 lakh each for families of the diseased and Rs 50,000 aid for each of the injured. He also instructed the district administration to arrange temporary accommodation for the other students, said a government spokesperson.