Chamoli. Dialogues Associate, Gopeshwar (Chamoli). All five persons were killed when a car fell into a ditch on the Badrinath National Highway near Chamoli. The dead also include father and son. All these people returning from the wedding ceremony were relatives. The accident was detected in the morning. Police extracted the bodies from the trench after a lot of hard work.
According to the police, Pratap Naithwal (50), his son Rajat Naithwal (23), nephew Praveen Naithwal (22) and relatives Ganesh Lal (29) and Shailendra Ravihadwal (32) from Kaudia village in Neeti Valley in Chamoli district were married. Came to Bhimtala village near Chamoli. At seven o’clock in the evening, they all left for the return by Swift car, but did not reach the village. Throughout the night, relatives kept calling him, but did not get any reply. After informing the police on this, the relatives along with the villagers went out in search of them in the morning.
At Peepalkoti near Chamoli, he came to know that his car had passed from here on Saturday evening. Meanwhile, the car appeared in the ditch ahead of the bridge under construction near a place called Pakhi, about 16 km from Chamoli. On the information of the accident, SDM Kumashum Joshi of Joshimath, SDRF and disaster management team reached the spot and started the work of removing the dead body from the trench. All the bodies were removed after six hours of hard work. Police suspect that in the night, the driver turned to the under-construction bridge instead of the old bridge and the car became an accident.
A new bridge is being constructed on Badrinath National Highway at a place called Pakhi, 16 km from Chamoli. Traffic is still being done from the old bridge. Badrinath MLA Mahendra Bhatt alleges that the accident could have been averted if the route leading to the new bridge had been barricaded. He said that it appears that the driver turned to the route leading to the new bridge instead of the old bridge. The MLA accused the construction agency of negligence and said that he has conveyed this to the Chief Minister.
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