3 of a family killed as car collides with stationary bus: Cops

New Delhi: Three women members of a family died after their car allegedly rammed into a cluster bus that was halted at a bus stand for passengers to board in outer Delhi's Nangli Poona area on Monday morning, police said. The deceased were identified as Jamna (62), her daughter Jyoti Sharma (27), and their relative Nisha (32).

Nisha's 18-month-old son and the car driver, Sunil, also a relative of the family, were injured. Police said they were going to Delhi from Himachal Pradesh and the bus was on its way from Mukhmelpur to Azadpur. Jamna and her daughter Jyoti, who hailed from Hamirpur in Himachal, owned a restaurant in Hong Kong and had come to India recently, they said, adding that the duo had their flight scheduled for Hong Kong on August 4.

As Nisha lived with her family in Ghaziabad, she also decided to accompany the mother-daughter duo on the way back to Delhi, a police official said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Outer North) Brijendra Kumar Yadav said that a PCR call was received at 7.04 am at Swaroop Nagar police station regarding an accident on the highway near Nangli Poona.

Police reached the spot and found that an i20 car bearing registration number of Himachal Pradesh collided with a cluster bus which was standing at the bus stand for boarding passengers, the DCP said.

"All the passengers in the car were found injured and were shifted to Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Hospital, where three females were declared brought dead. The injured driver and child were shifted to a private hospital," he said.

According to sources, driver Sunil has leg injury and a minor liver injury and tests will be conducted on Tuesday to determine the exact status of the injury and to ascertain the further course of treatment. "The toddler has multiple fractures and is on ventilator. He has several injuries," the sources said.

During the preliminary inquiry, it was found that there were no skid marks on the road and that the CCTV cameras inside the bus and that of the vicinity are being scanned to ascertain if there were passengers inside the bus and also sequence of the accident, the police officials said. "We suspect that since it was a late night journey from Hamirpur, the driver must have fallen asleep and lost control of the vehicle," they said.

Jamna's husband Jagannath is presently in Canada and her son Pradeep is in London, police said.

Jamna and her husband ran an Indian restaurant 'Sharma Ji' in Hong Kong but shut it down in 2020 after the Covid pandemic. Jamna's husband then shifted to Canada for some time and opened a restaurant there, they said.

An FIR has been registered against unknown persons under sections 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 304 A (causing death by negligence) of the Indian Penal Code and further investigation is underway, police said, adding no arrests have been made in the case.