Five youths died in a severe head-on collision between a van and a freight carrier on National Highway 15 near Balipara in Sonitpur district.
The crash happened during the night between September 11 and 12, 2026, in the Mith Chapori area near a local petrol pump.
The victims were traveling from Tezpur toward Rangapara when the high-impact collision crushed their Maruti Suzuki Eeco van. All five occupants, who were residents of Batabari, lost their lives on the spot. They have been identified as Gobinda Hazarika, Nayan Swargiary, Papu Bora, Pranjal Bania, and Sanjay Mech.
Sonitpur Senior Superintendent of Police Barun Purkayastha confirmed that the driver of the heavy freight carrier fled the scene immediately after the impact.
Emergency responders and local villagers used cutting torches to pull the victims out from the mangled wreckage. State police registered a hit-and-run case, seized both vehicles, and set up checkpoints across Sonitpur and Darrang districts to find the runaway driver. The bodies were sent to the hospital for postmortem examinations, and traffic along the route was restored after clearing the debris.
