Truck driver at large : Help arrived after 3 hrs, says friend : Family donates eyes of deceased children

Four members of a family and their driver died in an accident near Balachaur on the Jalandhar-Nawanshahr-Chandigarh highway late on Saturday night.

Ashwani Aggrawal (45) was travelling with his wife Pooja (44), son Dhruv (14) and nephew Archit (15) when their Swift car collided head-on with a truck. All four persons and the driver, Pawan, died on the spot, police said on Sunday.

Ashwani is survived by his 70-year-old father Prem Aggrawal and 17-year-old daughter Madhavi, a Class XII student of the New Public School in Sector 18, Chandigarh. The family lived in Sector 17, Panchkula.

Originally from Jalandhar, the family had been staying in Panchkula for the last few decades. They were returning to Panchkula after attending a religious function at Ashwani’s cousin Dinesh Kumar Aggrawal’s house in Jalandhar, when the accident took place.

“They had left in the afternoon. Dhruv had informed Madhavi about their departure. She never thought they would not reach home alive,” said Bali, who worked with Ashwani. Dhruv was a student of Class VII in Hansraj Public School.

Bali said though the police were informed immediately after the accident, help arrived after almost three hours. “The owner of a nearby dhaba had called up the police around 1 am. But it was only around 4 am that an ambulance arrived,” he said.

The air around their house, meanwhile, was heavy with grief, with relatives and friends wondering if the “new house proved unlucky for the family”. “They had shifted here only ten months ago,” said a neighbour.

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