Neighbors rushed out to free a scooter rider from the roadside bushes; they were still on the road when the trailer took the bend.
At least seven people were killed and one was injured when a speeding 18-wheel trailer truck ran over a group standing on the Karra-Torpa main road in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, India, on Thursday night, Nov. 5, 2026, police said Friday, Nov. 6. Six of the victims died at the scene. The seventh died during treatment.
Khunti Superintendent of Police Rishabh Garg said the truck, traveling from the Torpa side, ran over the crowd while negotiating a sharp turn. “The driver might not have seen the crowd due to darkness,” he said. Among the dead were three women, three children and one man.
The Scooter That Drew a Crowd
The chain of events began with a far smaller crash. At around 9:30 p.m., a scooter went off the road near Jone-Ludru Morh on the Karra-Torpa stretch and into the bushes at the shoulder, eyewitnesses said. Residents of a nearby colony and passers-by heard the noise and came out. Some worked to pull the rider free. Women and children stood at the edge of the road, watching.
Then the 18-wheeler came out of the dark from the Torpa side, lost control and struck the people on the shoulder. The truck broke through a culvert and plunged into a ditch on the stretch running toward Karra Railway Station.
Birsa Nayak Lost Three Relatives
Birsa Nayak, a resident of Karra, lost his wife, Kasila Devi, his daughter Anjali and his one-year-old grandchild, Saurabh. Another daughter, Khushboo, was seriously hurt and is undergoing treatment at Khunti Sadar Hospital, Nayak said.
A second family lost four. Rajesh, who was working as a laborer in Gujarat, lost his wife, Fagan Sanga; his mother, Karmi Lohrain; and his two daughters, Subhani Kumari and Soni Kumari. He was informed about the accident afterward, hundreds of miles from the road where it happened.
The Driver and Cleaner Fled
The driver and his cleaner abandoned the trailer at the site and ran. Police teams are carrying out raids to arrest the two, and officers have seized the vehicle and sent the bodies for post-mortem examination. Investigators say preliminary information points to the darkness and the sharp bend as the reasons the driver did not see the people on the road.
Karra police station in-charge Raju Kumar reached the spot with police personnel and health workers from the community health center in Karra soon after the first information came in. An injured child was taken there first, then referred to Khunti Sadar Hospital after doctors found the child’s condition critical. Garg went to the hospital late at night to check on the injured.
A Prayer to Marang Buru
Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences to the families who lost relatives in Khunti and prayed for the injured to recover quickly, in a message his office posted on X on Nov. 6.
Khushboo remains at Khunti Sadar Hospital, where her father said she is being treated for serious injuries, and police are still working to establish the full circumstances of the crash.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren said the news of seven deaths in a road accident in Karra had deeply saddened him, and he extended condolences to every grieving family. “May Marang Buru grant peace to the souls of the departed,” Soren wrote.