Varanasi bound bus catches fire in Kanpur, no injury reported

Kanpur, Nov 28 (PTI) A major tragedy was averted on Friday after a sleeper bus travelling from Delhi to Varanasi caught fire in Kanpur, police said.

Police evacuated all of the 38 passengers in a rescue

led by two constables, who rushed into the burning vehicle without protective gear, they said.

The incident occurred early morning in Ramadevi Chauraha on National Highway-19 here, when smoke began billowing from the luggage kept on the roof of the bus, Deputy CP (East) Satyajeet Gupta said.

Within minutes, the fire spread rapidly, engulfing the bus and triggering chaos as passengers screamed for help. While several men managed to jump out from windows in panic, many women, children, and elderly passengers were trapped inside, he added.

“Constables Sahil Khan and Pushpendra, deployed for traffic diversion duty at the nearby crossing, saw the flames and sprinted towards the bus,” the DCP said, and added that despite the intense heat and thick smoke, both of them climbed inside and began pulling passengers out.

Constable Sahil Khan told reporters, “Flames were already reaching the roof. We kept shouting at passengers to leave their belongings. Had we arrived late, even by two minutes, several persons’ lives could have been lost.” Sahil and Pushpendra carried children — sometimes two or three at a time — out of the smoke-filled bus. The constables also evacuated pregnant woman and several elderly passengers.

At one point, they re-entered the burning bus after receiving information that a child was still trapped.

“We checked seat by seat while choking on smoke. Thankfully, the child had been taken out already,” Pushpendra said.

Firefighters later brought the blaze under control, but the bus was completely gutted. Jewellery, cash, and personal belongings of passengers were reduced to ashes, said an official, pleading anonymity.

The cause of the fire remains unclear, though several passengers alleged a short circuit in the rooftop luggage compartment, he added.

The incident led to a massive traffic jam stretching nearly 10 kilometres, from Ramadevi to Naubasta, stranding hundreds of vehicles for over an hour.

An official inquiry has been launched to ascertain the exact cause of the fire, police said. PTI COR NAV SHS SHS