Two persons lost their lives in two separate mishaps in Udhampur and Ramban on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway on Friday.
A JCB operator died after the excavator, he was driving, was hit by a boulder in Samroli in Udhampur district while a truck cleaner slipped into a gorge in Ramban when he was trying to clear the road of stones.
The police said that a driver of an excavator was killed and two other workers,
including an employee of Gammon Company, suffered injuries after a huge boulder hit them at Samroli in Udhampur district this afternoon.
“An excavator was hit by a huge boulder in which the operator of the machine suffered serious injuries. Besides him, two other workers including supervisor also sustained injuries,” DySP Traffic, Udhampur-Reasi, Himmat Singh told Greater Kashmir.
The deceased operator was identified as Mohammed Afroz Alam, son of Faroz Khan, a resident of Dhawda in Aurangabad in Bihar.
Meanwhile, the injured employee of Gammon Company was identified as Anish, son of Jagdish Kumar, a resident of Udhampur.
DySP Traffic said that the vehicular traffic on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway was stopped from 12.30 pm and the work was on to clear the debris from the highway.
“We have stopped vehicular movement after the rocks blocked the highway,” said the DySP.
He further said that a fuel tank of a dumper also caught fire in the incident when it turned turtle after being hit by the rocks. He said that the injured persons suffered minor injuries.
The evacuation work was immediately started and injured were hospitalized, said the locals who claimed that the company without protection work started breaking rocks and it triggered slides leading to the mishap.
Meanwhile in another tragic incident, a helper (cleaner) of a truck died on the spot after he slipped into a gorge near Digdool Ramban on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway this morning.
Police source said the conductor of a truck, bearing registration number JK03H-7808, en route to Jammu from Srinagar de-boarded from his truck near Digdool to remove a stone from the road. During the process, while he was trying to escape the shooting stones, he slipped and fell into a 200-feet deep gorge, resulting into grievous injuries. He died on the spot.
After receiving information, the police and volunteers of civil Quick Response Team (QRT) Ramban rushed to the spot for rescue operation. After hectic efforts, they retrieved the body from the gorge and shifted it to the district hospital Ramban for conducting post- mortem and other legal formalities.
Police identified the deceased conductor as Junaid Ahmed, 23, son of Mehraj Ahmed, resident of Hurdu district Anantnag.
Police registered a case under relevant sections of IPC at Police Station Ramban.