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.
Those onboard the bus belonged to different parts of Punjab, including Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar and Mohali, and were mostly close relatives and friends who would often plan group pilgrimages.
Jalandhar resident Rakesh Kumar, 60, in his complaint to the police, said the bus caught fire near Dhulawat village while they were returning home from Vrindavan, but the driver did not stop despite being repeatedly asked by the passengers to pull over. “When he finally stopped, the flames had engulfed the entire bus. The locals pulled out a few passengers from inside the bus and took them to different hospitals,” said Mr. Kumar, who had hired the vehicle.
Sunita Sharma, one of the injured, said they had been to Ayodhya, Prayagraj, and Varanasi before Mathura and were on their way back to Punjab. “The bus was filled with smoke. No one could make out what had happened,” said Ms. Sharma, sobbing. Another passenger claimed that the doors of the bus got jammed after the fire broke out and they escaped through the windows.
Deputy Commissioner Dhirendra Khadgata said the injured were taken to Shaheed Hasan Khan Mewati Medical College in Nalhar and four of them were later discharged. Two of the injured were referred to a Delhi hospital.
Four fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the fire.
