Tragedy hit Amethi when eight of the passengers who were on way to Allahabad were burnt along when the UP Roadways on which they were traveling turned into a fireball in Piparapur area of the district on Tuesday morning. Around 16 passengers also received severe burn injuries and have been rushed to hospital.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who expressed his condolence on the tragic death of the passengers had also announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 5 lakhs each to the family of the deceased. He also announced Rs One lakh each for the critically injured and Rs 50,000 each for the other injured passengers besides free treatment to all of injured.
District Magistrate of Amethi, Jagat Raj Tripathi, who rushed to the spot to superwise the operation has ordered a magistrial probe. However, he confirmed death of only seven people in the incident. UPSRTC Managing Director, Mukesh Meshram, told the media persons that a service manager of Faizabad depot Santosh Kumar has been suspended. He said that some passenger had kept a 5 kg lPG cylinder near the engine which caught fire due to short circuit of the engine after which the fire spread. The driver of the bus was injured but the conductor escaped unhurt.
Meshram said that a two member team of the UPSRTC comprising CGM Technical Satynarain and CGM Operations H Gaba has rushed to the spot to probe into the incident and they will submit their reports tonight. UPSRTC MD has also ordered installation of CCTV cameras in all the Roadways workshop to monitor the maintainence of the buses.
Meanwhile, some passengers who were travelling in the ill-fated bus told reporters that some labourers were carrying lPG cylinders and they were smoking bidi when the incident occured. Four critically injured passengers were rushed to he Trauma center in lucknow. The ill-fated bus of Faizabad depot was on its way to Allahabad from Faizabad and around 65 passengers were on board when the fire triggered. Meanwhile a mob ransacked two fire tenders who reached the spot after two hours of the incident. In the attack, a fireman Saligram was injured and was admitted to the hospital. However, the CRPF men had rushed to the spot from the nearby training center and they saved several people from the burning bus. Amethi is the parliamentary constituency of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who is likely to visit the area sometime later this week.