COIMBATORE: A young civil services aspirant and a senior citizen were killed when an overspeeding private omni bus, plying between Coimbatore and Chennai, overturned near Annur on the outskirts of the city late Sunday night.Nearly 15 passengers were injured in the accident and treated as outpatients in private hospitals in and around Coimbatore. The deceased were identified as C Aarthi (24) of Salem and R Krishnan (65), a resident of Rathnapuri in suburban Coimbatore. Aarthi was a student at Chennai’s Manithaneyam IAS Academy run by AIADMK functionary Saidai Duraisamy.This is the second major accident involving rashly driven private omni buses in less than a month in Tamil Nadu. On June 7, an omni bus bound for Pollachi from Chennai had gone up in flames killing 21 passengers after it overturned near Vellore. In Sunday’s accident at Annur, the bus operated by ‘Air India Travels’, a little known “seasonal operator” based in Coimbatore, toppled hardly an hour after it commenced its journey when driver Manikandan rashly attempted to negotiate a blind curve on Sathy Road around 11 pmThe driver escaped unhurt and absconded from the scene after the accident. The vehicle owner Balaji, who was in the bus as a substitute driver, is also absconding. Based on eyewitness accounts, an investigating officer said that “the driver did not anticipate the sharp bend and tried hard to apply the brake all of a sudden. He lost control and the vehicle swerved from the road and capsized after hitting a tamarind tree on the road side.”
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