HYDERABAD, May 25: Four members of a family and the driver of their car were killed and two others were injured when the car rammed head-on into a truck coming from the opposite direction near the Akro toll plaza on the Indus Highway in the early hours of Saturday, said police.

Family head Bashir Ahmed Soomro, 44, who was the SHO of the GOR police station in Hyderabad, his son Naeem Ahmed’s bride Shabana, 19, her mother Sakina, 45, younger sister Seema, 13, and the car driver Dildar Ali, 45, died on the spot.

Bridegroom Naeem Ahmed, 22, and his sister Shazia, 12, suffered serious injuries and were taken to the Liaquat University Hospital’s Jamshoro branch.

The accident, which took place at around 4am, was caused by the reckless driving of the car driver, who was taking the six family members from Larkana to Karachi, said SHO of the Jamshoro police station Saleem Memon.

He said the truck driver and the cleaner managed to escape after the accident while the bodies had been handed over to heirs after fulfilment of medico-legal formalities at the LUH. Police impounded the two vehicles, he added.

The official in charge of the hospital’s intensive care unit, Dr Kashif Memon, said that Naeem had sustained serious head injuries and his sister had broken her right arm and leg. She was not in a critical condition and had been shifted to a private hospital by the family, he said.

“Bashir Soomro was returning to Karachi after holding the wedding ceremony of his son in Larkana. When their car crossed the Akro Toll plaza, a truck with fused headlights hit the car head-on, causing instant death of five persons,” Nazir Ahmed Soomro, assistant commissioner of Tando Mohammad Khan, and younger brother of deceased Bashir Soomro told Dawn.

He said that the bodies of Shabana, Sakina and Seema had been shifted to Larkana and that of driver had been sent to Karachi. His brother’s body was lying in the LUH morgue at present and would be shifted to his house in the Sindh University Professors Housing Society, he said.