A 14-year-old girl sleeping in a roadside shanty was crushed to death after an empty truck overturned on her in Thane city of Maharashtra early on Friday, officials said.
The incident took place in the limits of Kapurbawdi police station on the Mumbai-Nashik highway around 6.15 am, they said.
"The victim, Madhu Bhati, a toy seller hailing from Gujarat, was sleeping in a roadside shanty when the speeding truck overturned on her. The driver of the truck, which was going to Mumbai from Nashik, apparently lost control over the vehicle that led to the accident," said Avinash Sawant, chief of the Regional Disaster Management Cell (RDMC) of the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC).
After being alerted about the mishap, teams of the fire brigade and the RDMC rushed to the spot and pulled out the girl trapped under the truck with the help of a crane, he said.
The girl was immediately taken to the Thane civil hospital, where doctors declared her brought dead, Sawant said, adding that the driver of the truck fled from the spot.
Senior inspector Uttam Sonawane of Kapurbawdi police station an offence was registered against the truck driver under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act and a search is on for him.
