Nine persons, including eight women farm labourers, were killed after an autorickshaw in which they were returning home after work collided head-on with a state transport department bus on National Highway-14 near Birbhum’s Mallarpur area, on Tuesday evening.

The eight women who died were from the tribal community and all of them lived at Parkandi village in Rampurhat. They had gone to Dabuk village in Mallarpur as hired farm labourers to sow aman paddy. After work was done for the day, they were returning to their village in the three-wheeler.

The ninth person who died was the driver of the three-wheeler. “We have started a probe to find out the reason behind the accident in which nine innocent people were killed on Tuesday evening. We will arrest the driver of the bus very soon. We will take care of the next of kin of the deceased according to the government protocol,” said Nagendra Nath Tripathi, the Birbhum police chief who rushed to Rampurhat Medical College and Hospital along with district magistrate Bidhan Ray within an hour of the accident.

The deceased were Sitaram Hembram, 22, who is driver of the autorickshaw, Josomati Hembram, 50, Hopenkuri Besra, 30, Hopen Hembram, 35, Maku Hembram, 18, Sonadi Hembram, 40, Sakila Hembram , 54, Lakhi Hansda, 35, and Basanti Soren, 35.Josomoti is the mother-in-law of Hopenkuri.

All the other women were either neighbours or were somehow related to each other.“The entire village went into mourning after the news of the accident reached us. All the deceased women are from very poor families. Most of the women are mothers to several very young children,” said Ranjit Murmu, husband of Rupali Tudu, a zilla parishad member of Birbhum.Eyewitnesses said that the autorickshaw was going towards Rampurhat while the bus was coming from the opposite direction when it hit the small passenger vehicle.

The SBSTC bus that hit the autorickshaw in Birbhum’s Mallarpur on NH14

“The accident took place just 100 metres away from our office. We reached the spot immediately after the accident and found that the bus coming from the wrong side hit the autorickshaw. There was a bend where the accident took place,” said Sadhan Sinha, secretary of NGO Mallarpur Naisuva, who informed the local administration about the accident.

Many have raised questions on police vigil as the auto-rickshaw had nine occupants, including the driver, which was way beyond its capacity.“We do regular checks to detect vehicles overloaded with passengers. However, we need to find out whether this was the only reason behind the accident this evening,” said a police officer.

Officials said that the next of kin of all the deceased persons will be provided an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh each.“It is very pathetic that nine persons lost their lives in the fatal accident. The administration will stand by the mourned families with all government aides. We will hand over the cheques of ex-gratia worth Rs 2 lakh each tomorrow (Wednesday). We will provide all other government benefits to the next of kin of the deceased,” said DM Ray.