Bangalore:
Seven people, including a child, were burnt to death when a brand new luxury bus caught fire late last night, hours after leaving Bangalore for Mumbai.
There were 52 people on the Volvo bus that had started operating just last month; 45 managed to break the windows and jump out of the burning bus.
The police have booked the driver, who allegedly ran away, and the owner of the bus, Shakeel Ahmed, the brother of JD-S MLA Jameel Ahmed.
This comes two weeks after another Volvo bus from Bangalore had caught fire killing all 45 on board.
Last night, the bus was allegedly speeding through Haveri town in north Karnataka when, at about 3 am, the driver apparently lost control and hit a road divider near a bridge. The diesel tank burst and the bus was engulfed in flames.
A loud explosion woke the sleeping passengers, who tried to get out of the bus as the fire spread. By the time a passenger managed to smash his hand through a window, a two-year-old child and six others, including a second driver, were charred to death. Many jumped out even with 60 per cent burns.
"All I knew was I had to jump out. The window was high up, but I did not think. Others were burning and I turned to the broken window and jumped," said a passenger, Pappu Rathod, 44. "I remember falling on the road and dragging myself away from the heat. I called my son in Pune and told him I was dying. Then I fell unconscious."
The police said some of the passengers were charred beyond recognition.
The injured are being treated at the Haveri district hospital and some have been shifted to the Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences Hospital in Hubli.
On October 30, 45 people were killed when a Hyderabad-bound bus from Bangalore caught fire after hitting a road divider, causing the fuel tank to burst on the national highway in Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh.