Online Desk: Two persons were dead and 12 others were injured in a head-on collision between a bus and pickup van on Dinajpur-Gaibandha regional highway road at Birampur upazila in Dinajpur district on Sunday morning. The accident took place at Bouttali area at around 6.30 am.

The deceased were bus driver Golam Rabbani, 36, a resident of Dinajpur, and pickup van driver Md Azad, from Brahmanbaria. Identities of the other casualties and the injured could not be known immediately.

Quoting locals, Birampur Police Station officer-in-charge Suman Kumar Mohanto said a speedy Dinajpur-bound Nabil Paribahan bus collided head-on with a pick-up van from the opposite direction in the area, leaving the vehicles drivers dead and other 12 passengers critically injured.

Being informed, members of Fire Service and Civil Defence and police rushed to the spot and recovered the bodies while the injured were sent to several hospitals including Birampur Upazila Health Complex, he said. Later, police took the bodies in police custody and legal steps would be taken in this regard, the OC added.