MALAYSIANS TOLD TO BE VIGILANT WHEN VISITING INDIA

By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI, Sept 1 (Bernama) -- Malaysian tourists visiting India are advised to take extra precaution as the spate of fatal road accidents involving Malaysians are worrying.

Malaysian High Commissioner to India Tan Seng Sung said recent accidents,
where Malaysians lost their lives, showed that travellers need to be more
careful when planning their travel to India.

"They must hire proper drivers and have their travel insurance ready when
making trips to India," Tan told Bernama on the sidelines of Malaysia's 52nd
National Day celebration in Delhi last night.

Over 200 guests, including foreign diplomats, Indian officials and
Malaysians attended the event hosted by the High Commission at a leading hotel
in the capital.

The envoy's comments came in the wake of the recent accident in Leh, in the
Kashmir region, where three Malaysian women were killed while another is still
missing after their vehicle hit a rock and toppled into a ravine.

Another woman, who is part of the Malaysian entourage on the trip to the
mountainous Leh, suffered severe injuries and is still recuperating in a Delhi
hospital.

In April this year, a van ferrying a group of Malaysian pilgrimage to
Haridwar, a Hindu holy site, collided with another vehicle, killing the tourist
guide and his assistant.

Two Malaysian women, who were injured in that accident, later died in a
hospital in Delhi.

A month later, two young sisters, one a journalist from a Kuala Lumpur-based
English newspaper, were badly injured when the taxi they hired from the airport
in Delhi rammed into an oncoming car.
-- BERNAMA