A catastrophic head-on collision between a sleeper bus and a heavily loaded truck on the Jaipur-Bikaner National Highway in Rajasthan’s Sikar district late Tuesday night claimed four lives and left twenty-seven passengers injured, several of them fighting for survival in intensive care.

The ill-fated private bus, carrying pilgrims returning to Gujarat after visiting Jammu and Kashmir, was travelling from Bikaner toward Jaipur when it slammed directly into the oncoming truck near Fatehgarh, resulting in a devastating impact that mangled both vehicles and scattered debris across the highway.

Rescue teams and police rushed to the dark stretch of the national highway, extricating trapped and bleeding passengers from the twisted wreckage of the sleeper coach; four victims, including one who succumbed during emergency transfer to SMS Hospital in Jaipur, were declared dead, while fifteen grievously injured individuals were admitted to Sikar district hospital under trauma care.

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Thirteen other passengers with moderate injuries received immediate treatment at a nearby facility in Fatehgarh before being discharged, as preliminary investigations pointed to possible overspeeding and driver error on the poorly lit highway notorious for frequent fatal accidents during night hours.

Authorities have seized both vehicles, registered FIRs against the drivers of the bus and truck, and launched a detailed probe into road safety compliance, while the bodies of the deceased have been shifted for postmortem as grieving families from Gujarat began arriving in Rajasthan to claim their loved ones.

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