Till Monday evening, Lakhatpada in Bapugaon village of Maharashtra’s Palghar district was preparing for a wedding.
Relatives had arrived from nearby villages, women were busy discussing ceremonies and food arrangements, and children moved from house to house in excitement amid preparations for 23-year-old Balaram Dandekar’s wedding on May 23. Decorations had appeared outside homes, and families were preparing for rituals. Many from the village had travelled together to attend the engagement function.
By Tuesday morning, an eerie silence had descended upon the village; it was punctuated only by cries of grief.
A horrific accident on the Mumbai–Ahmedabad Highway near Dhanivari in Dahanu Monday evening claimed 13 lives, including those of women and children from Bapugaon village. A container trailer rammed into a tempo transporting villagers to the pre-wedding function. More than 30 people were injured, several of them critically.
On Tuesday morning, ambulances carrying bodies entered the village one after another as hundreds of residents lined the narrow roads waiting for news of relatives and neighbours. Many had spent the entire night outside hospitals in Dahanu and Palghar, hoping their family members would survive.
“A wedding procession left. Dead bodies have returned,” said a resident standing outside one of the homes where mourners had gathered.
Tragedy appeared to have spared no home in Lakhatpada. Some lost two or three members of a family. Others prayed for relatives admitted in intensive care units.
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Women could be heard from inside homes as funeral preparations replaced wedding plans. Elderly men sat outside. Several women fainted as villagers gathered, struggling to find words to console them.
“No one has eaten anything since yesterday evening. The whole village feels destroyed,” said village sarpanch Pradeep Jadhav.
Among the worst-affected families is that of Balaram Dandekar, whose wedding brought together relatives from across the region. His grandmother, 60-year-old Champi Raja Lakhat, said the family spent nearly two months preparing for the marriage and exhausted their savings for the ceremonies.
“Five members of our family and a total of 13 people from the village have died. The wedding has now been cancelled and we cannot even think about it for years,” she said, sitting outside her home as neighbours tried to comfort her.
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Inside, wedding preparations lay abandoned. Relatives said clothes and jewellery purchased for the ceremonies remained untouched.
Balaram could barely speak. The young man, who helps his parents with farming and has studied his Class 12, broke down repeatedly as villagers came to offer condolences.
“I did not have a son, so my daughter and son-in-law stayed with me. It was my dream to see my grandson get married. I had invited the entire village,” Champi said. “Everyone left happily in one vehicle.”
In another part of the village, 60-year-old Shivram Dandekar struggled to cope with the loss of his daughter, Vandana Valvi, who died on the spot in the crash. Vandana’s husband remains in critical condition at Vedanta Hospital.
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Their daughters had also travelled in the same vehicle. Twelve-year-old Saloni died during treatment, and another daughter, Radha, remains critical. Three sisters survived.
“There was blood everywhere. My younger sisters were badly injured,” said Varsha, one of the surviving daughters.
The tragedy also shattered the family of 35-year-old farmer Sitaram Lakhat, who lost his only son, 13-year -old Ayush.
Ayush had insisted on joining the trip because his friends from the village were going. “His mother tried to stop him but he was very excited. I only told him not to drink cold drinks on the way,” Sitaram said before breaking down. His wife, Sunita, fainted repeatedly during the day as neighbours gathered around her.
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In a small hut nearby, nine-year-old Suvidha sat holding a photograph of her mother, Sarika Lakhat, who died in the crash along with Suvidha’s four-year-old sister Priyanshi. Their father, Santosh, remains admitted in the ICU with severe injuries.
Residents said the village had never witnessed such a tragedy. For nearly three kilometres leading into Bapugaon, relatives arriving from nearby villages could be heard crying openly. Some women collapsed on the road while making their way toward homes where bodies had been brought. By afternoon, funeral pyres dotted the village, days after it decked up to celebrate a wedding.
