Bus crashing & catching fire in Guna: Death toll reaches 13

Guna: In the unfortunate accident of a private colliding with a dumper truck and catching fire here in Madhya Pradesh, the death toll has reached 13. It is learnt that the bus has no fitness certificate or a permit to operate on the route, and the owner had applied for cancellation of registration of the vehicle, according to a PTI report.

Taking serious note of the incident, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav announced the suspension of a local transport official and the chief medical officer of Guna for alleged negligence, and also ordered transfers of state transport commissioner Sanjay Kumar Jha, district collector Tarun Rathi and superintendent of police Vijay Khatri.

The bus overturned and caught fire after colliding with a dumper on Guna-Aaron road around 9 pm on Wednesday. The death toll rose to 13 on Thursday with the recovery of a body, suspected to be that of the dumper driver, sub-divisional magistrate Dinesh Sanvle told PTI. Most of the bodies were charred, officials said.

More than a dozen passengers were injured, police said.

The bus was on its way to Aaron while the dumper was headed for Guna. Superintendent of Police Vijay Khatri said there were around 30 passengers in the bus, and four of them managed to get out of the vehicle unscathed.

Chief Minister Yadav announced assistance of Rs 4 lakh each to the kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 each for the injured.

"The Guna bus accident is horrific. I and my government are extremely grieved by the incident. I have already said that the incident should be probed," CM Yadav said.

"We will take steps to ensure that such an accident should not take place again. Though it is a matter of investigating how a fire broke out, we will ensure that such an accident does not take place again," he said.

After meeting the injured persons at a hospital in Guna, Yadav ordered the suspension of Guna's Regional Transport Officer Ravi Barelia and Chief Medical Officer V D Katrolia for alleged negligence, a government official said.

Following directives of the chief minister, the district collector formed a four-member committee headed by additional district magistrate Mukesh Kumar Sharma to conduct a probe, the official added.

The panel was directed to submit its report within three days on various issues, including whether the two vehicles had all the legal permissions and how the bus caught fire, he said.

Before he was suspended, Barelia told reporters that the bus had neither a valid permit to run on the route nor a fitness certificate.

An application had been submitted to the Regional Transport Office by the owner for cancellation of the bus registration two months back, but it was pending due to non-payment of tax. The bus had not been used for some time as it lacked a permit for the route, but apparently, it was deployed on Wednesday to replace another passenger vehicle and met with an accident, he said.

Later in the day, the state government first issued the transfer order of the collector, followed by transfer orders of the state transport commissioner and the Guna SP. Both Jha and Khatri were shifted to the police headquarters, while Rathi was transferred to the state secretariat as additional secretary.

The charge of the transport department was taken away from principal secretary Sukhveer Singh and given to additional chief secretary (home) Rajesh Rajora.

A First Information Report (FIR) was registered against the drivers of both the bus and the dumper, besides bus owner Bhanupratap Singh Sikarwar, at Bajranggarh police station under Indian Penal Code sections including section 304 (causing death by rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide) and the Motor Vehicles Act, an official said.