Sixteen persons, including 12 pilgrims, were killed and 22 injured in road accidents across Punjab and Haryana on Monday.

Seven pilgrims were killed and 12 injured when a pickup van they were travelling in collided with a truck near Dhakwala village on the Meerut-Karnal road. The police said the vehicle carrying the pilgrims from Karnal was returning from Haridwar in Uttarakhand.

In Hisar, a 65-year-old woman and her 11-year-old grandson were killed while nine others received injuries when a mini-van overturned after hitting a stray animal in Hansi sub-division of the district. The deceased were identified as Kiran Devi and Keshav Kumar from Paharganj in New Delhi. Nine persons were injured in the accident.

Three persons, including a father-son duo, were killed after their bike collided with a mini-bus and caught fire near Kathar village in Adampur town on the Jalandhar-Hoshiarpur highway, Hindustan Times reported.

The deceased are Jagnal Chaudhary, 33, his son Sahil, 4, and Govind, 35. They were returning after paying obeisance at the Chintpurni shrine. In Moga, two cousins were crushed under a truck after their motorbike skidded on a road.

Tractor trailer carrying pilgrims overturns in HP, 1 dead

One person was killed and 21 others injured when a tractor trailer carrying pilgrims skidded off the road at Basoli in Una district of Himachal Pradesh on Monday. The deceased has been identified as Lovepreet Singh, 20, of Sangrur in Punjab. The driver lost control over the vehicle as it was descending a steep slope.