2 children among 6 killed in road crash

At least six people including four members of a family and a police official were killed in a head-on collision between a bus and a microbus in Mallikpur area of Faridpur Sadar upazila on Monday morning.

The accident took place around 6:30am when a Magura-bound bus collided head-on with a Dhaka-bound microbus on Dhaka-Khulna highway.

The deceased are Shariful Islam, 32, from Boalmari area of Faridpur, his daughter Tabassum, 9, sister-in-law Atiya, 14, and Shariful's niece Tanzu. The police official is sub-inspector (SI) Faruk from Alfadanga area. The driver of the microbus, Nahid, was also killed in the accident.

Shariful's wife Rabi Begum is critically injured in the accident and admitted to Faridpur Medical College Hospital.

The additional police superintendent of Faridpur, Saifuzzaman, told Prothom Alo that the driver of the bus ran away immediately after the accident.

"We assume there were no passengers in the bus," he added.

Incidentally, as many as 4,356 people were killed and more than 5,000 others injured in road accidents across the country last year, according to a road safety advocacy group.