Dream journey ends on a tragic note, grief fills Hyderabad’s bylanes

Tragic accident in Jabalpur leaves families from Hyderabad grieving, struggling to break news to young family members

In the quiet, winding bylanes of Hyderabad’s Nacharam, grief sat heavy in the air on Tuesday (February 11, 2025) night with only muffled sobs and deep sighs breaking the silence. The dimly lit parking lot of an apartment building in Karthikeya Nagar turned into a quiet space for mourning where B. Suman Kumar sat motionless, his head buried in his hands, unable to process the weight of what had just happened. His brother, 47-year-old B. Santosh Kumar, was dead — one of the seven persons killed in the Jabalpur accident. His cousins, Anand Kumar and S. Shashikant, had also perished, while his brother-in-law, S. Naveenacharya, lay injured.

Around him, family members and neighbours gathered, some coordinating travel to bring the bodies home, others making arrangements for the final rites, and a few trying to comfort him. The news came to the family at the time when they were preparing for another moment of remembrance—Santosh’s wife’s first death anniversary, coming up on March 6. Now, instead of preparing for a memorial, they were facing yet another funeral.

But of all the burdens pressing down on Suman, one loomed heavier than the rest. How was he supposed to break the news to Santosh’s two boys—B. Varun and B. Praneet, just 13 and 10 years old. The brothers, studying in class 8 and 5 at Shantiniketan Vidyalaya in Shameerpet, had no idea their world had just changed forever.

“I dropped them off at their hostel on Monday morning,” Suman said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Since we got the news, we just… we couldn’t tell them. I don’t know how I will. I have to pick them up tomorrow. I will watch their faces light up when they see me and in a single moment, I will have to take away the life they knew.” His words trailed off, the reality of what lay ahead.

For Suman, the memory of his last conversation with his brother is now frozen in time, a moment he keeps replaying in his mind. It was around 9:30 p.m. on Monday when he last spoke to Santosh. The group had just finished their pilgrimage and was preparing to begin their long journey back to Hyderabad. “I wanted to check on him, so I called up. He told me they had taken the holy dip, that everything was going great. He sounded happy… at peace,” he said.

The family had been expecting the group to return home by Wednesday morning. Instead, what arrived was the unthinkable—the news of their deaths. Relatives and friends were seen moving between the homes of other deceased, which are just a few meters apart.

The last ride