KHUZDAR: Eight people, including a minor girl, were killed and 22 others injured in an accident on the Quetta-Karachi highway near the Zawa area of Khuzdar on Friday night.

Sources said on Saturday that a passenger coach going from Quetta to Karachi collided with a truck coming from the opposite direction.

Soon after receiving information security personnel and rescue workers rushed to the area and shifted the bodies and the injured to the Khuzdar Teaching Hospital. The injured in a serious condition were later referred to the Combined Military Hospital, Khuzdar, and a hospital in Karachi.

Deputy Commissioner of Khuzdar district retired Major Ilyas Kibzai said that five passengers died on the spot and the other three during treatment in the hospital.

Levies officials said that except the coach driver all the victims belonged to the Hindu community. They said women and children were among the injured.

They said the cause of the accident, which occurred at a turning point on the highway, was over-speeding. Six of the deceased were identified as Muhammad Arif (driver of the coach), Suresh Kumar, Anash Kumar, Dalip Kumar, Suresh and Guryia.

“We have received eight bodies and 22 injured,” hospital officials said, adding the critically injured had been sent to Karachi.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2018