Key Points

The deceased were pilgrims who had visited the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi shrine and were returning to Katra from the Serli Helipad. The collision was severe, resulting in the instant death of all three passengers in the auto-rickshaw, said SDPO Katra Bhisham Dubey.

Police and rescue teams rushed to the spot immediately after the incident. The bodies have been shifted to a nearby hospital for postmortem, and an investigation into the cause of the accident has been initiated.

Earlier, four men died in a road accident at Jammu-Katra Expressway in Rohtak after a car collided with a parked road-roller on Saturday night.

The four men, including Somveer, son of the rural president Balwan Ranga fell victim to a tragic road accident, as they were returning from a business meeting related to the tile industry. They were in a car heading back to the village from the Jammu-Katra side to Rohtak on the Rohtak Road, where the construction work on the road was underway, and a road roller was stationed.

Kuldeep KD, the district president of Sari Rohtak, said, "Somveer, the son of rural president Balwan Ranga, along with three other men, were returning from a meeting related to their tiles business when their car collided with a road roller parked on the Rohtak Road."

Sub Inspector Devendar said that all four of them died due to the impact of the accident.

"The four victims belonged to the same village and were returning from a business meeting. While returning from the Jammu-Katra side towards Rohtak, the car collided with a road roller parked along the roadside on the Rohtak Road, where the roadwork was being done. All four of them succumbed to their injuries," SI Devendar told ANI.

- ANI