At least 15 people, including several teenagers and two Home Guard jawans, have been killed in Gwalior after a truck on Sunday broke barricades and ran over devotees en route to the Sheetla Mata Temple for Navratri prayers.
It is now suspected that the driver of the overloaded paddy truck may have used Google Maps to take a shorter route to his destination.
According to Gwalior CSP Ravi Bhadoria, the driver, Mohit Singh, who fled the scene after the tragedy was not a native of Madhya Pradesh, which could be why he had taken the Chinar Road route—a no-entry zone not usually taken by heavy vehicles.
"This truck was coming from Debra Mandi (in Madhya Pradesh) carrying paddy ... Additionally, parking, checkpoints, and barricades were also in place, but under what circumstances it reached here (is currently under investigation)," he explained.
More than 25 others, including two police personnel, have also been injured in the incident after the Punjab-registered truck ran over some devotees and crashed into a gate at the temple's entrance at about 1:30 AM on Sunday.
The impact from this, in turn, brought down a section of the temple wall, trapping people under the debris.
Officials also clarified the earlier brake failure angle in a PTI report, pointing out that this could have forced the driver to swerve left in a desperate attempt to control the vehicle. This is because if it had continued straight, he would have ran over at least 600-700 devotees.
A Regional Transport Office (RTO) team has also been sent to inspect the truck to determine why it swerved to the left.
“This occurred at around 1 AM. I saw some people die on the spot. The truck was overloaded; it came suddenly and ran over some shops and people,” an eyewitness told ANI, adding that his brother had died in the crash.
Following the accident, Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav removed CSP Bhadoria and suspended eight other police personnel over alleged negligence. Both the driver Mohit and the owner, Dilbag Singh, have been arrested as well.
The CM also announced compensation of ₹4 lakh for the families of those killed, ₹2 lakh for the seriously injured, and ₹50,000 for other injured, as well as free treatment for all the affected people.
