Eight people were killed when a mini-traveller carrying pilgrims from Madhya Pradesh left the Delhi–Mumbai Expressway and plunged into a roadside drain in Rajasthan’s Kota district early on Saturday, 17 October. Sixteen injured passengers were admitted to hospitals, according to the account of the medical response. Other early reports gave slightly different injury totals, and the final number was not consistently stated.
Crash near expressway pole 384
The accident happened at about 6am near pole 384, within the limits of Simliya police station and around 35 kilometres from Kota city. The vehicle fell into a drain about 15 feet deep. Mud and water inside the channel made it harder for rescuers to reach passengers, and cranes were brought in to lift the damaged minibus and assist the operation.
The passengers were travelling from Bhopal and Betul districts. The group had left Bhopal at about 7 pm on Friday, 16 October, for a religious tour lasting several days. Khatu Shyam temple, in Sikar district, was to be the first destination. The vehicle was reported to have been carrying 25 people, many of them members of extended families.
Police said investigators were examining whether the driver had become drowsy before the vehicle left the road. That remains a suspicion, not an established cause. The circumstances of the crash were still under investigation, and no final finding on why the minibus veered off the expressway had been announced in the reports checked.
Rescue and hospital response
Emergency crews worked at the drain to reach people trapped in or around the vehicle. The silt and standing water complicated the effort, while cranes were used to recover the minibus. The injured were taken to the New Medical College Hospital and MBS Hospital in Kota. Hospital officials said eight people had been brought dead and that 16 wounded passengers were admitted for treatment.
Those figures describe the count in the hospital account carried in the direct report. Other contemporaneous accounts cited 15 injured or a range of 16 to 17, reflecting a discrepancy in early reporting. The death toll of eight was consistent across the reports. Police and local officials were present at the hospitals, and the surviving passengers were reported to be out of danger in the direct account.
The group’s journey had begun only hours before the crash. Most passengers were said to have been asleep when the vehicle went off the road. One injured traveller described travelling with a wide circle of relatives, including uncles and aunts. The account underscores that the passengers were travelling together as a family group, rather than as unrelated visitors on a regular public service.
Compensation announced
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav directed officials to provide Rs 4 lakh to the next of kin of each person who died, as well as other assistance. The announcement followed a crash in Rajasthan involving residents of Madhya Pradesh, with officials from both states involved in responding to the incident and supporting affected families.
The financial assistance is a state-government announcement; it does not resolve questions about the circumstances of the collision or replace the ongoing investigation. No conclusion on driver conduct or any other contributing factor should be drawn before investigators establish what happened.
The crash took place on the eight-lane Delhi–Mumbai Expressway, near a marked pole on the route through Kota district. At the time of the reported rescue, the immediate priorities were recovering passengers, treating the injured and identifying those who had died. The detailed cause remained unsettled while authorities continued their inquiries.
For the families, the planned pilgrimage was interrupted shortly after the overnight departure from Bhopal. The eight deaths and injuries among the surviving passengers turned the journey into a major emergency response in Kota. Officials’ account of the suspected drowsiness remains preliminary; the central established facts are the early-morning crash, the fall into the deep roadside drain and the casualties reported by police and hospitals.
