Navi Mumbai: Two incidents of multi-vehicle pile-ups occurred inside Bhatan tunnel on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway’s Pune-bound carriageway on Saturday morning in which two persons were injured and five vehicles were damaged. They included two cars, an MSRTC bus and two private luxury buses. The mishaps occurred at an interval of 30 minutes between 8.30 and 9.15 am.Rasayani police and highway safety patrol team had rushed to the spot upon receiving the information and the traffic movement was streamlined by clearing the tunnel pathway.Abhijit Bhujbal, senior inspector of Rasayani, said that the first mishap occurred inside Bhatan tunnel around 8.30 am. Due to heavy rains and a traffic snarl, the vehicular movement towards Pune had slowed down near Bhatan. As the vehicles entered Bhatan tunnel, a private luxury bus rammed into a car’s rear end and it in turn crashed into another car ahead, due to which the traffic came to a standstill. Upon receiving information on wireless, police team reached the spot. However, one car had already left and the driver of the car in which a senior citizen woman sustained minor injuries said that he doesn’t want to lodge a police complaint.Inspector Bhujbal said, “In the second mishap inside the Bhatan tunnel around 9.15 am, a MSRTC bus slowed down during slow traffic movement when a car crashed it to rear end of the bus and a private luxury bus behind banged into the car’s rear end. One person in the car sustained minor injuries, but the car driver told he doesn’t want to lodge police complaint as he will claim car insurance.
