A DAY after 19 passengers were charred to death in a fire in a private bus here, the Andhra Pradesh Police on Saturday said the explosion of two 12 KV batteries contributed more to the blaze than the two-wheeler’s fuel tank.

 

The two-wheeler was dragged forward underneath the bus, leading to the bursting of its fuel tank and subsequent ignition of the fire. The driver of the bus and the additional driver have been taken into custody by the police, although they hold the former culpable.

 

In the wee hours of Friday, the sleeper bus from Hyderabad to Bengaluru ran over a two-wheeler, which had already met with an accident, at Chinna Tekuru village in Kurnool district, resulting in the eruption of a raging fire which burned 19 passengers to death.

 

There were 44 passengers in the bus and several managed to escape the fire. “That (two-wheeler fuel tank) wasn’t the major cause of fire.The tank got burst and fire erupted exactly at the main exit door. And behind the main exit door there were bus batteries, two 12 KV batteries.

 

These batteries exploded,” Kurnool Range deputy inspector general (DIG) of police Koya Praveen told PTI. He said there were two points of combustion.

 

First was the twowheeler’s fuel tank and the second was its impact at the bus’ battery toolkit. Besides these two points, Praveen observed, the bus was also furnished with highly combustible materials, including metallic paint, which further aggravated the blaze.

 

Though there was as consignment of cell phones in the bus, theDIG downplayed theirrole in the flareup, observing that they were mostly intact and blamed the bus’s batteries. Meanwhile, police took the driver,MiriyalaLakshmaiah(42) and additional driver Siva Narayana into custody. However, they are holding Lakshmaiahculpableashewas driving thebuswhenitran over the skidded two-wheeler.

 

KurnooldistrictSuperintendent ofPoliceVikrantPatilnotedthat thedriverhadescapedtheinferno by jumping outthrough the passenger door and failed to gauge the situation.

 

Afterescapingtheragingfire, Lakshmaiah wokeuptheadditional driver sleeping in the luggagerackatthebottomportion of the bus between the front and rear wheels. Realising that they cannot enterthevehicle,

 

togetherthey started breaking the window paneswitharodusedtochange tyres, enabling some passengers to escape the blaze, said Patil. Some onlookers also broke a few more window panes while some others were broken from insidebythepanic-strickenpassengersrushing to escape, he said.

 

However, the fire continued to rage and engulf the entire bus, prompting the scared Lakshmaiah to fleethespot.Policepickedhim up from Kurnool on Friday. They have booked Lakshmaiahfornegligenceand overspeeding.