Four persons, including two women and a child, died in a road accident in Milanpally area on NH81 in Malda district on Thursday night.

Sources said an autorickshaw and a two-wheeler collided head-on on the highway under Ratua police station limits, which raised questions on whether the highway was adequately policed at night to prevent rash driving.

The deceased, police sources said, were identified as two-wheeler rider Mozammel Hoque, 22, and autorickshaw passengers Aslam Sheikh, 12, Taslima Bibi, 35, and Sukri Bibi, 40. Policemen helped reach five persons — including autorickshaw driver — to a local hospital where doctors pronounced four of them dead.

Autorickshaw driver Islam Sheikh is admitted to Malda Medical College and Hospital in a critical condition. Aslam was his son and the women his sisters-in-law.

“The two-wheeler at breakneck speed rammed the autorickshaw head on. The rider fell with the vehicle, the autorickshaw also overturned on impact and all passengers got stuck under it. We rushed for help and found that four had died on the spot,” said a resident. Both the vehicles were badly mangled, he added.

Eyewitnesses told police that auto driver Sheikh was returning from a fair at Pandua area in Gazole with son and sisters-in-law. The road was dark when the biker lost control and hit the autorickshaw. Residents of Milanpally claimed that most of the streetlights are out of order. “The accident might have been averted had this stretch of the highway been well lit,” a villager said.

“We are probing if the biker was drunk,” a police officer said.

Islam’s wife, who has come to know about the deaths of her son and two sisters, is frequently fainting in shock, said a neighbour.

“She is lamenting that her son didn’t want to go to the fair but agreed only as his father kept on insisting on it,” the neighbour said.