3 pilgrims killed, 9 injured in Tirumala ghat road mishap

Driver alleged to be in an inebriated state

Tirupati: Three pilgrims, including a mother and her two sons, were killed and ten others were injured, five of them critically, when the jeep carrying them jumped the downward Tirumala ghat road and fell into a 12 feet deep gorge, as its driver lost control of the vehicle in a highly inebriated condition. The police and vigilance department of TTD suspected the main cause for this fatal accident as the drunken driving. As the driver Yugandhar was also injured and admitted at government Ruia Hospital in Tirupati, the doctors would reveal his condition after tests.

The driver, Yugandhar, a local youth of Tirupati, picked up a 5-member family from Bidar and five other passengers at Tirumala and started towards downhill Tirupati on Monday. At the serpentine 26th curve, he lost control of the vehicle, leading to the mishap. A Sabitha, 28, and her younger son Srinivas, 7 were killed on the spot, while the elder son Sandeep, 9, died of head injury, at the Hospital.

The Tirumala police rushed to the spot and registered a case. The inebriation of the driver while coming from Tirumala surprised the police and the hospital staff as to how he could have obtained liquor or carried it with him, evading strict vigilance norms and security. A The TTD has announced Rs. 3 lakh compensation to each deceased family and Rs. 1.50 lakh or the total free medical treatment till they became normal to all injured persons.

The TTD Joint Executive Officer Mr. P Venkatrami Reddy visited the casualty of SVRRGGH in Tirupati and announced this.A It is for the first time in recent years that fatal accident took place on Tirumala ghat. The injured pilgrims were identified as Thulasi, Rajeswari, Sasikala, Govindaswamy and Sanjeev of Bidar in Karnataka and Ramesh of Srikalahasthi, Nagalakshmi of Tiruchanur and Basavaraj of outskirts of Tirupati.