The devastating head-on collision between a passenger bus and a gravel-laden truck on the Hyderabad-Bijapur Highway in the early hours of Monday morning resulted in the deaths of 19 individuals, among them three promising college students from the same family: Tanusha, Sai Priya, and Nandini, all daughters of local driver Yellaiah Goud, a resident of Tandur in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district.

The sisters had returned home briefly over the weekend to attend a family wedding in their hometown, a joyful gathering that followed the recent marriage of their eldest sibling, Anusha; despite repeated family discussions and a last-minute warning from a bystander at the bus stop about the vehicle’s poor condition, Goud made the agonizing choice to send them back to Hyderabad on Monday, a routine journey that ended in unimaginable loss as he now grapples with the permanent absence of his three children.

Amid the twisted wreckage and scattered debris, rescue personnel from local emergency services worked tirelessly under harsh floodlights to extract victims, discovering 33-year-old Saliha Begum still cradling her three-month-old infant son in a final, protective embrace—both mother and child perished together, their journey to visit paternal grandparents in Hyderabad cut short by the sheer force of the impact that crushed the front of the bus.

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Ten-year-old Vivek, accompanied by relatives, arrived at the accident site in Chevella later that morning and broke down in uncontrollable grief upon learning that his father, N Hanumanthu, a dedicated worker who had missed an earlier train and opted for the bus as an alternative, was confirmed among the deceased, leaving the young boy to confront a future stripped of paternal support and guidance.

The Chevella tragedy stands as a profound and painful reminder of the human cost behind road safety statistics—lives of bright students on the cusp of adulthood, devoted mothers embarking on family visits, and hardworking fathers simply trying to reach their destinations—now reduced to silence, with the communities of Tandur and surrounding areas enveloped in a shared mantle of mourning that will linger for years to come.

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