As many as 16 pilgrims, including children and women, were charred to death and scores of others injured, many of them seriously, when a bus collided with a stationary truck in Uttar Pradesh’s Baharaich district, about 250 kilometres from here on Friday night.
Police sources said the ill-fated bus, bound for the famous dargah of Syed Salar Masaud Ghazi in the district, caught fire almost immediately after the bus hit the truck as a gas cylinder kept inside exploded. “Many people broke open the windowpanes of the burning bus to come out,” said a police official.
The victims complained that the fire tenders took several hours to reach the spot as a result of which the bus continued to burn for a long time.
They also alleged that there were fire tenders at a nearby sugar mill but the mill management did not rush them to the rescue.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 1 lakh each to the kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 to the seriously injured.
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