Bulandshahr Car Accident: Eeco Hits Tree Near Narora, Four of a Family and the Driver Killed on Way to Belon Temple

What happened

Updated 23 October 2026, about 9.50 a.m. IST. We have corrected who died. PTI, Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala say the five dead were four members of one family and the car’s driver, so the family lost four people, not five, as our first version and some early reports said.

On Friday, 16 October 2026, an Eeco car carrying eight people went out of control and hit a tree at the side of the Delhi–Badaun highway near Ratanpur Khedia village, in the Narora police station area of Bulandshahr district, Uttar Pradesh. Five people died and three were badly hurt. Seven of the eight were members of one family from Daheli Buzurg village under Sidhpura police station in Kasganj district, and the eighth was the driver, according to PTI. They were on their way to the Sarvamangla Mata temple at Belon, near Narora, for darshan and a child’s head-shaving (mundan) ceremony, Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala reported.

The PTI-Bhasha report, quoting police, put the time at around 2 p.m. Pardaphash reported that the family left home at about 7 a.m. and described the crash as happening in the morning. We have gone with the police time but note the difference. Dainik Jagran said the family left Daheli Buzurg at about 5 a.m. and visited other shrines on the way, so the departure time is also reported differently.

Eyewitnesses quoted in the IANS report and by Dynamite News said the car was moving at high speed, and PTI-Bhasha described it as a speeding car. Aaj Tak reported that the driver may have dozed off. None of these is an official finding. Police have said they are investigating why the car left the road.

The people

Aaj Tak and Newstrack published the same details of the dead: a one-year-old girl, whom we are not naming; Lokendra, 28, son of Ramdin; Babita, 35, wife of Praveen Kumar; Ramdin, 50, son of Ramshankar; and Shivshankar Mishra, 55, son of Anpal. Officials quoted by IANS described the dead as three men, a woman and a child. Pardaphash gave Lokendra’s age as 26 and spelt the oldest man’s name as Shivshekhar Mishra. PTI, Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala identify him as the car’s driver, aged 55. PTI lists the other four dead as Lokendra, his one-year-old daughter, his father Ramdin and Babita, who was married to Ramdin’s other son, so four of the dead were one family. Amar Ujala adds that the driver owned the Eeco, lived in the same village and had been hired by the family for the trip. The Dibai SDM, speaking to Newstrack, described all five dead as one family, which the later reports do not support.

Newstrack reported that the three injured were a 20-year-old woman, Lalita, and two children aged 4 and 11. We are not naming the children. Reports differ on the woman’s relationship to Lokendra: PTI calls her his wife, while Dainik Jagran called her his daughter on the day and his 30-year-old wife in a later village report. Amar Ujala reported on 18 October that the injured are being treated at different hospitals, that two of the three have been operated on and that one child has a blood clot in the head and is still under treatment. We found no report of any of them dying.

Response and investigation

Passers-by and villagers pulled people out of the wrecked car, and police took them to the Community Health Centre at Dibai, where doctors declared five dead. The Public Relations Officer of the Bulandshahr Superintendent of Police confirmed to IANS that eight people were in the car. Dibai SDM Ravikant Dubey told Newstrack that five people of one family, including a father and son, had died, that the three injured had been referred from the Dibai CHC to a higher medical centre, and that the bodies had been sent for post-mortem. Two YouTube reports spell the SDM’s surname as Chaube. PTI-Bhasha said the injured were sent to a hospital in Aligarh.

PTI’s English report adds that the car, coming from the Dibai side, left the road at a slight bend and hit a large jamun tree standing about four metres from the carriageway, according to local accounts. It says Dibai SDM Ravikant Chaubey and Circle Officer Madhup Singh inspected the spot, that the bodies were sent for post-mortem after the inquest, and that further legal action was under way. Amar Ujala reported that the bodies reached Daheli Buzurg late on 16 October, that the family’s dead were cremated or buried on the morning of 17 October, that the driver was cremated separately at Kadarganj, and that the local MLA visited the grieving families.

When we checked on the morning of 23 October 2026, we still found no report of an FIR, an arrest, compensation, or an official finding on the cause.

Why this matters

Families across north India pack into one car for a temple trip, set off early and drive straight back. This crash has the pattern seen again and again on two-lane state highways: one car, no other vehicle reported, and a tree close to the road edge. When a car leaves the road at speed, a tree trunk does not give way, and the people inside take the full force.

NCRB’s Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2024 report recorded 23,739 people travelling in SUVs, cars and jeeps who died in road accidents that year, behind only two-wheeler riders and pedestrians. Police recorded over-speeding as the cause of 1,01,649 road deaths and driver fatigue as the cause of 1,250. Fatigue is hard to prove after a crash, so that figure is likely an undercount.

Lessons for families on the road

• Everyone wears a seat belt, in every row. The law requires rear-seat belts too. In a crash, an unbelted person in the back is thrown forward into the people in front.
• Do not carry more people than the car has seats and belts for. Children on laps cannot be held in a crash. A baby or toddler needs a proper child seat, fixed in the back.
• Slow down on tree-lined highways. Many UP and Bihar state highways have trees a metre or two from the tarmac. At high speed there is no room to recover if a wheel drops off the edge.
• A sleepy driver must stop. Heavy eyes, yawning or drifting in the lane mean pull over at a dhaba or fuel pump, drink tea and rest 20 minutes. If another adult can drive, swap.
• Passengers, speak up. If the driver is racing or nodding off, ask them to stop. Nobody minds reaching the temple half an hour late.

What to do after a car crash

• Call 112 or the ambulance on 108 straight away. Give the highway name, the nearest village or landmark and the direction of travel.
• Switch off the engine if you can reach it safely, put on the hazard lights and keep people away from the traffic.
• Do not pull a badly injured person out unless there is fire or another immediate danger. Moving them can make neck and back injuries worse.
• Under the Good Samaritan rules, a person who helps an injured stranger cannot be forced to give their name or held at the hospital.

More on Bulandshahr: see our fire and emergency safety guide for emergency numbers, the fire stations and the local risks to know.

What is still not known

Whether the car was speeding, the driver dozed off, or both; the exact time; how the eight people were seated and whether anyone wore a seat belt; and how the three injured are recovering have not been officially confirmed. We could not find an FIR or a police finding on the cause. We will update this page when official information is published.