4 of family killed as car falls into well in Gujarat

Morbi, November 8

Two women and two minor boys from a family were killed after their car fell into a roadside well in Gujarat’s Morbi district, police said on Monday.

The accident took place on Sunday night near Kankot village of Wankaner taluka, they said.

A preliminary investigation has revealed that the driver of the rented car dozed off. As a result, he lost control over the vehicle and the car fell into a roadside open well, Wankaner taluka’s police inspector VD Vaghela said.

The driver and two other car occupants – Ratilal Prajapati (69), a resident of Ahmedabad, and his son Dinesh (43) – managed to come out of the vehicle in time.

However, Prajapati’s wife Manjula (60), daughter-in-law Meena (43) and grandsons – Aditya (16) and Om (7) – got stuck in the drowning car and could not be saved, the police official said.

Based on a complaint lodged by Prajapati, the Wankaner police registered an FIR against the unidentified driver, who fled from the spot after the accident, on charges of rash driving and causing death by negligence, he said.

Efforts were on to nab the car driver, he added.

As per the FIR, the Prajapati family had hired the car to visit various pilgrimage sites in Saurashtra region, such as Somnath and Dwarka, and had set off on the journey three days back.

On Sunday night, when the family was coming to Wankaner from Rajkot to meet a relative there, the car fell into the well, said the FIR.

“The car driver allegedly ran away instead of helping Prajapati and his son in saving their family,” Vaghela said.

The car and the four bodies were later fished out from the well, he said. PTI