HARIPUR, Sept 28: Seven occupants of a pick-up were killed and nine injured, four of them seriously, when the vehicle was hit by a train near Shah Maqsood, four kilometres from here, on Wednesday.

Police and railway authorities said that the accident occurred at an unmanned railway crossing.

Eyewitnesses and police said that 20 people, all relative to each other, were returning in the pickup (ADA 6072) after attending a marriage ceremony in Donali Shah Maqsood village.

The pickup driver, in a bid to cross the railway crossing in a hurry, got his vehicle in the way of the Havelian-bound 11 up Chenab Express.

However, the train hit the pickup and dragged it up to a distance of about a furlong, killing seven passengers on the spot and injuring nine others.

The accident was so severe that some of the bodies were cut into pieces, which were collected by the rescue teams of Edhi volunteers and local people and taken to the DHQ hospital in Haripur.