24 Killed In Ramban Bus Mishap

Srinagar, Sep 13, KONS: At least 24 people were killed and 20 others injured in yet another road accident in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, adding more victims to the interminable list of fatalities due to lax police and traffic authorities.
The tragedy occurred this afternoon in the Digdol area of Ramban on the Srinagar-Jammu highway when an overloaded passenger bus from Banihal dropped 1000 feet into a gorge, official sources said.
Sixteen occupants were said to have been killed on the spot, while the others succumbed to their injuries at various hospitals, including the Government Medical College in Jammu.
The 26-seater minibus, carrying 44 passengers, had shot off the road after its driver lost control, officials claimed.
Rescue operations by the army, the police and the civil administration were said to have pulled out 23 survivors from the wreck, airlifting them to hospitals where 8 succumbed to their critical injuries.
The minister for higher education, Abdul Ghani Malik, who rushed to the scene of the accident, announced ex gratia relief of Rs 1 lakh to the kin of each of those killed, and Rs 10,000 for each of the injured, from the chief minister’s relief fund.  
Almost all accidents in the valley and the mountainous Doda region in the Pir Panjal range in recent months involved passenger busses carrying over twice the authorized capacity of passengers and reckless driving by operators.
The government’s repeated claims to enforce strict traffic management and regulation, particularly on the treacherous roads in the Doda, Kishtwar and Badarwah belt, have failed to check overloading and over-speeding by passenger transporters, leading to a unconscionably high loss of life in traffic accidents.