Giddalur: Four persons died, and eight others were injured when a lorry hit an auto rickshaw carrying a wedding party on the Amaravathi-Anantapur national highway at Cumbum on Thursday night.
The wedding party belonged to Nallabanda Bazar in Giddalur. The bride, Veeramma, was to marry Pamuleti of Cumbum at around 9:00 am on Friday. The party had left Giddalur at 11 pm on Thursday and reached Cumbum Y Junction at around 12.30 am. They stopped at the Vinayaka temple to break a coconut before proceeding to the wedding. As the people came out of the temple after the ritual and were boarding the auto rickshaw parked by the roadside, a lorry coming from behind at high speed rammed the vehicle.
Alakananda (19), Ankalu (21) and Nagesh (18), who had boarded the auto rickshaw, had died on the spot by then. An infant, Nageswari, aged one-and-a-half years, died later while undergoing treatment. The eight injured people were shifted to Cumbum Government Hospital in ambulances. Four of them with serious wounds were later shifted to Markapur for better treatment, and their condition is stated to be stable.
DSP U Nagaraju, CI K Mallikarjuna and SI Siva Krishnareddy reached the spot, registered the case and are investigating.