Ranjit Singh, the manager of the bus company whose vehicle was attacked in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi on Sunday, recounted the horror and said that the driver "sacrificed" himself for the passengers.
As many as nine people were killed and 42 others were injured when a bus filled with pilgrims from the Shiv Khori shrine was ambushed by terrorists on Sunday in the Reasi district. The driver lost control of the bus amid gunfire and the vehicle fell into a gorge.
"The bus used to run from Katra to Shiv Khori daily, booking happened daily. But we never thought that this could happen. We used to hear of things like this in Kashmir but this area is safe. We never thought this could happen to us," Mr Singh said.
"We received a call at 5 pm that there had been firing on our vehicle... When we did a little investigation, we came to know that it was an attack by terrorists... Passengers told us that the terrorist got into the bus and told the driver to make the passengers deboard."
"The driver sensed that the man was a terrorist, refused to deboard the passengers, and sped up when the terrorist fired a bullet. The bus lost balance but the driver kept driving. When he didn't stop, the terrorist shot him in the head... The conductor took hold of the steering and the terrorist shot at the conductor too. Both were killed. The bus lost balance and fell into a gorge", he added.
"Had the driver not shown a presence of mind, no passenger would have survived. They might have even set the bus on fire. The driver did well and sacrificed himself for the 40 passengers", he said.
Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir police said that the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba is believed to be behind the attack. J&K police have formed 11 teams to investigate the attack.
A team from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) assessed the situation in Reasi on Monday and the NIA's forensic team is working on collecting evidence.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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