9 burnt alive, 17 injured in Nuh bus fire

Sanjay Yadav

Gurugram, May 18

Nine persons, including five women and a 12-year-old girl, were burnt alive and 17 injured when a moving tourist bus caught fire on the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway near Dhulawat village in Nuh district of Haryana in the wee hours on Saturday, the police said.

The bus was carrying around 60 people, all residents of Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana and Jalandhar. They were returning after visiting Ayodhya, Mathura and Vrindavan when the bus caught fire. All of them are relatives, the police said. The cause of the fire was said to be a short circuit in the AC box of the bus, but the police said it was being investigated.

All passengers were from Punjab

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• 60 persons, all residents of Punjab, were travelling in the bus
• They were returning after visiting Ayodhya, Mathura and Vrindavan

An FIR has been registered against the driver who managed to flee from the accident site. Of the 17 injured, two were referred to the PGIMS, Rohtak, and one to a hospital in Gurugram. The rest were discharged from Nalhar medical college, Nuh, after treatment. Nuh Deputy Commissioner Dhirendra Khadgata said a forensic team from Madhuban would investigate the cause of the fire. Tauru SDM Sanjeev Kumar had been appointed as the nodal officer to investigate the incident, he added.

A local resident, Vasim, said after noticing the fire, some passersby signalled the driver to stop the bus, but he continued driving. Vasim said he even chased the bus on a motorcycle for almost 2 km, but by then the fire had spread inside the vehicle.

Four fire tenders reached the spot and doused the fire, the police said, adding that of the nine persons, who were killed in the incident, three were still to be identified.

Those who have been identified include Shashi Sharma, Gautam Sharma, 12-year-old Jovita alias Khushi, all residents of Shalimar Nagar, Hoshiarpur; Sunita Bhasin from Model Town, Kamalpur, Darshan Lal of Jalandhar; and Amar Rani from New Saini Enclave, Mohali, said the DC.

The injured have been identified as Hasraj, Payal, Soni, Swatantra, Sudesh, Urmila, Nisha, Anju, Sangeeta, Meena Rani, Krishna, Naresh Kumar, Javinder Rana, Baljeet, Poonam, Vijay Kumar and Shanti.