india

Updated: Jul 14, 2019 01:28 IST

Two people, including an elderly woman, were killed and 15 sustained burn injuries as a tourist bus caught fire after it hit the divider on the national highway-44 near Sanwla village of Kurukshetra district in the wee hours of Saturday.

The deceased have been identified as Geeta Devi, 75, of Delhi and Hardeep Singh, 24, of Amritsar. Geeta was burnt to death while Hardeep died due to a head injury. Police said the accident took place around 4 am as the driver of the bus probably fell asleep and lost control of the vehicle. The bus overturned after hitting the road divider and caught fire. The driver managed to flee after the accident.

The injured were rushed to nearby hospitals and five of them were referred to Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Chandigarh.

The double-decker bus was carrying 55 passengers and it was going from Delhi to Jammu.

“Two passengers, including an elderly woman, were declared dead by doctors and five were referred to GMCH, Chandigarh,” said investigation officer Surender Singh.

The police said the passengers accused the driver of negligence and rash driving.

On the complaint of a passenger, Narender Gupta, a resident of Delhi, the police have booked the driver, who is yet to be identified, under Section 304 A (causing death due to negligence) of the Indian Penal Code, among others.

Kurukshetra SP Astha Modi said the bodies of the deceased were sent to for postmortem Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital in Kurukshetra.