At least eight persons were killed when a tourist bus they were travelling in caught fire on the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway near Nuh district of Haryana on Friday night. More than 20 people have sustained injuries in the accident.
According to media reports, there were more than 60 passengers on the bus. They were returning from a pilgrimage to Mathura and Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh when the fire accident took place.
The injured have been brought to Nuh Medical College, news agency ANI reported.
Nuh MLA Aftab Ahmed said he was saddened by the incident.
"I would say that this is a very painful, sad and heart-wrenching incident. The devotees were returning from Vrindavan. The bus caught fire and several people including elderly, women, and children got injured," the MLA was quoted as saying.
According to an NDTV report, all the passengers were members of a family hailing from Punjab.
The fire was first noticed by a motorcycle rider who was behind the bus. He caught up with the driver and alerted him about it. The bus was stopped then.
Locals, with the help of police, tried to rescue those inside the bus. People claimed that the fire force reached the location three hours after the bus was totally burned down.
"We ran behind the bus and broke the windows to pull out as many people as we could before the fire grew too intense. We informed police but they took too long to arrive," NDTV quoted a local, who was part of the rescue operation, as saying.
