Road accidents kill 7 in 3 districts

Our Jessore correspondent reported that at least five people, including two women, were killed and 35 others injured as a bus hit a roadside tree in Barinagar area on Jessore-Jhenaidah Highway in Sadar upazila in the afternoon. Of the dead, four were identified as Ram Prashad, 40; Rizia Begum, 40; Arabindu Roy, 52; and his wife Iti Rani, 42. The accident occurred when a Kushtia-bound bus of Rupsha Paribahan hit the tree around 1pm as its driver lost control over the wheel, said Azmul Huda, officer-in-charge of Jessore Kotwali police station. On the other hand, a teenager was run over by a truck while going to school on his bicycle in front of Janata Cinema Hall in Fulbarigate area on Khulna-Jessore Highway in Khulna city, our correspondent reported. The dead is Mostafizur Rahman Bablu, 14, a student of class IX of Sonali Jute Mill Secondary School under Khanjahan Ali police station area. Local people protested his death putting up barricade on the highway for an hour, and demanded immediate arrest and exemplary punishment to the truck driver. Meanwhile, an elderly woman died as cloth got entangled with the wheels of an auto-rickshaw in Enayetnagar area in Kalkini upazila in Madaripur. The dead, Fatema Begum, 60, was the wife of Fazlul Haque Chowkidar of the village.