Two women were killed and 12 others were seriously injured when a vehicle carrying officials and students of an institute for differently able fell into the Teesta river in Darjeeling district today.
The officials and students of Jalpaiguri based Anubhav Pratibandhi Siksha Pratisthan had gone to Mangpu in Darjeeling district to visit a house where Rabindranath Tagore had stayed.
The accident occurred when they are returning.
Police said the vehicle rolled down the hill and fell into the Teesta river at around 7 PM.
While Sunanda Mukherjee (78), a guest of the institute, died on the spot, an official identified as Gauri Chaudhuri Dutta succumbed to her injuries in a hospital.
Mukherjee, the daughter-in-law of Bengali author late Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, was a resident of Santiniketan and was a guest at the foundation day ceremony of the institute held yesterday, said Somnath Mukherjee, an official of the insitute's Siliguri branch.
Of the injured persons, the condition of three is stated to be critical.
