Nine devotees, including a ten-year-old girl, were charred to death and 20 sustained burn injuries when a tourist bus they were on caught fire on the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal Expressway at Nuh in Haryana in the early hours of Saturday.
The bus with 62 people, including 35 women and four children, onboard was on its way to Jalandhar in Punjab from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh when it caught fire around 2 a.m. Besides the minor girl, the deceased include five women and three men. “Eight charred bodies were recovered from inside the bus, and one person succumbed to injuries during treatment,” said Narendra Bijarniya, Superintendent of Police, Nuh. A forensics team from Madhuban in Karnal was called to ascertain the cause of fire, he added.
The bus driver — charged with causing death by negligence and negligent driving under the Indian Penal Code — is on the run.
