Around midnight on a road in Ambedkar Nagar district, two motorcycles hit each other head-on near a brick kiln. Both riders were badly hurt. People nearby heard the crash and ran over to help.
Within minutes a car came down the road from the Jalalpur side, lost control at speed, and swerved into the crowd. At least eight people died.
The first crash happened on the Akbarpur-Jalalpur road, close to the Ashrafpur Bhuwa brick kiln in Jalalpur police station limits, according to police. Locals and passersby were getting the riders to a nearby hospital when the car plowed through the group, knocking several people down. It happened in the early hours of Monday.
Prachi Singh, Superintendent of Police for Ambedkar Nagar, said the Jalalpur Circle Officer and other officers reached the scene after locals called UP 112, and that they took the victims to the Community Health Centre at Jalalpur Nagpur with local help. Doctors there declared six people dead on arrival. Two others in critical condition were sent to the district hospital and then to Tanda Medical College. Both died there, she said, bringing the toll to eight.
The dead
Police named six of them: Kaifi, 32, from Lorpur Tajan; Uttam Kumar, 24, from Semra; Aditya Kumar, 25, from Jainapur; Lalchand, 24, from Patti Mohan; and Raju Gupta, 32, from Sikandarpur. The sixth was Chhotu, also from Jainapur, who like Aditya Kumar was the son of a man named Mayaram. Two other men, aged about 35 and 32, had not been identified.
Police have opened inquest proceedings and sent the bodies for post-mortem examination. Officials said legal action is under way, and that officers are trying to trace the driver and work out how the car went out of control. Senior officers said the scene was under control.
