A Dubai grandmother and three of her grandchildren died when their car collided with a lorry last week in the Indian state of Gujarat, officials said. Ten members of the family and the driver, who also was killed, were travelling to their hometown of Nasik in Maharashtra state after a visit to the holy shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisty in Ajmer in Rajasthan state. The accident occurred near Gajar village, about seven kilometres from Modasa.
The accident occurred at 5.30am on Monday; six other people were injured, according to Mukesh Patel, a police sub-inspector with the Modasa rural police station. The driver, Yusuf Abdullah Pathan, 55, died at the scene, Mr Patel said. The others killed in the wreck were identified as Naseem Bano Salim Umar, 55, the grandmother of Ahmed Abdullah al Rahim, 13, Shahima Adil Abdullah, six, and Mohammed Abdullah Adel, four.
"Maybe one or both drivers of the vehicle were sleepy, but it was more the fault of the lorry," he said. Mr Patel, who was at the scene of the accident, said potholes caused by recent monsoons could have caused loss of control. That, coupled with the narrow road and an attempt by the lorry to overtake the family's four-wheel-drive vehicle were the most obvious factors, he said in his report. sbhattacharya@thenational.ae
