Six members of a family from Nadia’s Ranaghat, on their way to a picnic at Hazarduari, were killed when a speeding truck rammed into their pick-up van on NH12 in Rejinagar, Murshidabad before daybreak on Tuesday.

Samir Malakar, a pandal-maker, who lost both his son and wife in the accident, had organised the picnic for 14 members, said sources.

The family had hired the pick-up van and covered it with tarpaulin to protect themselves against cold.

They left their Ranaghat home around 1am on Tuesday and reached Rejinagar-Dadpur village on NH-12 around 5am when the driver of the pick-up van took a break to relieve himself.

With the van parked along the highway shrouded in fog, visibility was poor.

The speeding Berhampur-bound truck could not see the parked pick-up van and rammed into the vehicle from behind, killing four persons on the spot, police said.

Two others of the family succumbed to their injuries later at the Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital in Berhampore. Eight other injured members are undergoing treatment at the hospital.

Rejinagar police have seized the truck but the driver remains absconding.

The six deceased have been identified as Shilpi Mandal, 40, Ila Sarkar, 50, Soma Malakar, 35, Suraj Malakar, 13, Shila Das, 52, and Samir Das, 28.

All the victims are close relatives and resided at Ainshtala and adjacent areas of Ranaghat town.

Murshidabad’s superintendent of police K. Sabari Rajkumar said: “Preliminary investigation indicates that fog-induced poor visibility led to the accident. A search has been launched to nab the absconding truck driver.”

Basudeb Sil, a neighbour of the Malakar family, said they were all shocked at the news. “The family had planned a family get together in Hazarduari and were scheduled to return late tonight (Tuesday). I was shocked to receive a call from the police around 5.30am informing me about the accident,” Sil said.

Residents of Rejinagar-Dadpur village said the stretch of NH12 near their locality was too narrow and had thus become accident-prone.

They said widening of the stretch into a four-lane road was yet to be taken up even though the widening work between Nadia’s Bahadurpur and Berhampur had been completed.

An officer of Rejinagar police said that many drivers often fail to control their speeding once they enter the narrow stretch.

Speaking on this particular accident, he said: “It could have been averted had the driver parked the pick-up van a little away from the highway. There was heavy fog cover on the road and the pick-up van did not even have tail lights (to alert other vehicles of its presence).”

Ranaghat panchayat samity president Tapas Ghosh said they had all learnt about the accident from Murshidabad police. “We later took up the matter through our district administration and requested the police to hand over the bodies soon after post-mortem to the relatives of the deceased,” Ghosh added.