Hyderabad: Four persons died and 17 others suffered injuries when a private bus rammed into a slow-moving truck from the rear on National Highway-163 at Rangapur village near Parigi in Vikarabad district in the early hours of Tuesday.The victims were returning to Shabad after attending a wedding in Parigi.The deceased were identified as Balamma, 60, a housewife from Solipet, Sandeep, 26, from Krishna Nagar, Mallesh, 30, from Seetharampur, both businessmen from Shabad, and Ashwini, 30, a housewife from Ravulapalli village in Shankarpally mandal. Among the 17 injured, Mamatha, 30, and Mokshita, 5, both from Shabad suffered severe injuries. Mamatha was undergoing treatment at Gandhi Hospital, while Mokshita was admitted to Niloufer Hospital.The remaining 15 injured, including bus driver Md Yousuf from Solipet, were recuperating at a private hospital in Vikarabad.On Monday night, over 50 people from different villages in Shabad and Shankarpally mandals went to Baharpet in Parigi to attend a wedding of their relative from Shabad. They hired Shabad-based SHK Travels bus for the journey. After attending the wedding and having dinner, they started their return journey around 1.30am. At 1.40 am, when they reached Rangapur village on NH-163, the bus crashed into a slow-moving cement truck ahead.Due to the collision, four persons sitting in the front left seats of the bus died on the spot as their seats came off the floor and landed on the roadside. “It appears like the bus was moving at a high speed as the front left half of the bus was badly damaged in the accident,” Parigi sub-inspector (SI) Santhosh said.After the accident, the truck driver abandoned his cement-laden vehicle near the accident spot and fled. Alerted by the locals, the Parigi police rushed to the spot and, with the help of locals, shifted the injured to a private hospital in Vikarabad. “Two severely injured patients were shifted to Gandhi and Niloufer in Hyderabad. The rest are undergoing treatment in Vikarabad, and they are out of danger,” SI Santhosh said.Based on the complaint of the victims’ families, the Parigi police have registered a case under Sections 106 (1) (Causing death due to negligence) and 125 (a) (Causing hurt by an act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the BNS. The bodies were handed over to the families after post-mortem examination on Tuesday. “The truck driver is absconding. Prima facie, it appears like there was negligence on the part of both the drivers.The bus driver appears to be speeding and driving in a rash manner. The truck driver did not have a light reflector strip at the rear , and the tail lamps were not working,” the SI added.