Three children among five killed after speeding van rams into auto

Hyderabad: Five persons, including three children, travelling in an auto-rickshaw died and two others sustained injuries when a speeding van hit the vehicle in Balanagar of Mahabubnagar district Friday evening. As the news of the accident spread, people from the village to which the victims belonged staged a protest on the main road and set the van on fire, resulting in a traffic jam on the Hyderabad-Bengaluru national highway.

Mahbubnagar SP Harshvardhan said that it was a head-on collision. The exact cause of the accident and other details are being probed, he said.

The deceased have been identified as Junnu, 3, Tinki, 3, Jaswanth, 10, Panni, 50 and Sunitha, 32. The injured were Bhadru Singh and Mounika. Singh's condition is said to be critical and he has been shifted to Osmania general hospital here.