Salem: At least four persons were crushed to death and a head of cattle injured as a mini-van in which they were transporting the bovine was involved in a multiple collision on Kandampatti flyover on the Salem-Coimbatore section of the national highway near here in the wee hours of Sunday.
Police said that Ramesh, 26, of Kanjanaickanpatti near Omalur near here who runs a beef stall near Nattamangalam, along with his friend Balu, 35, were transporting a bull which they had purchased last night to his premises in the mini-van driven by one Sadiq Basha, 46. The latter's son Rahamath Basha, 17, was also accompanying his father in the mini-man as he assists him in his job.
As the mini-van was traversing the flyover, a water tanker ahead of it rammed into a lorry that was ahead of it and under its impact the mini-van and another lorry behind it were sucked into a multiple collision one after another. The mini-van sandwiched between two lorries was smashed beyond recognition, killing all its four occupants on the spot.
On information, Sooramangalam police rushed to the spot, pulled out the four bodies from the mini-van apart from the injured bull. They sent the bodies of all the four persons to the Mohan Kumaramangalam government hospital in Salem for post-mortem. Police also deployed a poclain to disentangle and separate the collided vehicles and cleared the highway for subsequent traffic. Vehicular movement on that stretch came to a standstill for nearly two hours due to this gory multiple collision.
-Further investigations are on.
