Four people were killed and 31 injured after a private sleeper bus travelling from Bengaluru to Kozhikode collided head-on with a lorry in Periyapatna taluk of Mysuru district early on Friday, police said. The crash occurred at about 4.30am, when the bus and the lorry were travelling in opposite directions.
The deceased include the bus driver, Sunil, and conductor, Sunaad, both from Karnataka, as well as a passenger identified as Aftab from Kozhikode in Kerala. Police said the identity of the fourth victim had not been established at the time of reporting.
The collision caused a severe impact. Two people died at the site of the crash, while two others were declared brought dead at a hospital, a senior police officer said. The report did not specify the exact location of the collision within Periyapatna taluk or the hospital where the victims were taken.
Thirty-one passengers were injured in the accident. Three of them suffered serious injuries and were undergoing treatment at different hospitals, according to the police officer. The condition and treatment details of the remaining injured passengers were not provided in the report.
The bus was operating on the Bengaluru-Kozhikode route, linking Karnataka with Kerala through a major intercity travel corridor. Sleeper buses are widely used for overnight and early-morning journeys on such routes, making crash-response capacity and access to emergency medical care important factors when serious collisions occur.
The incident adds to the safety risks faced by passengers and commercial vehicle crews on intercity highways, particularly during low-light hours. In this case, police attributed the collision to the bus allegedly coming into contact head-on with the lorry, but the report did not provide further findings on the cause of the crash or whether any formal investigation had been completed.
The police response and hospital treatment of the injured passengers remain the immediate next steps. Authorities are also expected to establish the identity of the fourth deceased passenger and record further details as the investigation progresses.
