Mohd. Wahed barely slept on the night of November 2. The 32-year-old poultry transporter kept staring at the strings of balloons, candles and platters set out for 100-odd guests in his modest Kishanbagh home in Hyderabad, imagining the moment he would finally hold his 40-day-old daughter for the first time. By dawn, his wait was almost over: his wife Saleha Begum (20), her father Mohd. Khalid (43) and baby Zaheera Fatima were already on their way from her parents’ house in Tandur, roughly 120 kilometres away. The house and Wahed were ready for their welcome. But the bus bringing them home never arrived.

Around 7.10 a.m., on the Mirjaguda stretch of National Highway 163, the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TGSRTC) bus collided head-on with a gravel-laden lorry. The impact crushed the front of the vehicle, splitting open the 44-seater and burying it under tonnes of gravel. Nineteen people were killed instantly.

Rescue workers found Saleha, a homemaker, in the mangled wreckage, her arms wrapped around her daughter. Their bodies and that of her father were taken to the Community Health Centre (CHC), colloquially known as Government Area Hospital, about six kilometres away.

“This was the baby’s first journey home,” says Wahed’s brother, Waseem. “Saleha went to her mother’s place after delivery, as is our custom. The cradle ceremony was set for November 5. Wahed had spent a lot on decorations, jewellery and food. He hadn’t even seen his daughter since she was born. He is inconsolable.”

Saleha’s father worked in transport and packaging, the only earning member of his family in Tandur, a town in Vikarabad district.

The crash site at Mirjaguda still bears the marks of that morning with sand poured hastily over blood stains, long dark skid marks etched across the asphalt, shards of glass and jagged pieces of metal half-buried in the dust.

From a distance, the bus rese