Kurnool: Andhra Pradesh Police stated Saturday that the explosion of the bus’s two 12 KV batteries was the primary cause of the devastating fire that killed 20 people, contributing more to the blaze than the motorcycle’s fuel tank.
The driver of the bus and the additional driver have been taken into custody by the police, although they hold the former culpable.
The DNA profiling of the charred bodies was underway to establish their identities and the process may take be completed by Monday, a district official said.
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.
The two-wheeler was dragged forward underneath the bus, leading to the bursting of its fuel tank and subsequent ignition of 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 two-wheeler’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 a consignment of cell phones in the bus, the DIG downplayed their role in the flareup, observing that they were mostly intact and blamed the bus’s batteries.
Meanwhile, police took the driver, Miriyala Lakshmaiah (42) and additional driver Siva Narayana into custody.
However, they are holding Lakshmaiah culpable as he was driving the bus when it ran over the skidded two-wheeler.
Kurnool district Superintendent of Police Vikrant Patil noted that the driver had escaped the inferno by jumping out through the passenger door and failed to gauge the situation.
After escaping the raging fire, Lakshmaiah woke up the additional driver sleeping in the luggage rack at the bottom portion of the bus between the front and rear wheels.
Realising that they cannot enter the vehicle, together they started breaking the window panes with a rod used to change 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 inside by the panic-stricken passengers rushing to escape, he said.
However, the fire continued to rage and engulf the entire bus, prompting the scared Lakshmaiah to flee the spot. Police picked him up from Kurnool Friday.
They have booked Lakshmaiah for negligence and overspeeding. Police had registered the case at the Ulindakonda police station under sections 125 (a) (endangering human life) and 106 (1) (causing death by negligence) of BNS Act.
According to the DIG, it was additional driver Narayana who had emerged as the saviour and played an instrumental role in saving lives by breaking the window panes.
Though it was initially believed that the bus had rammed the two-wheeler from behind, including by the police, Patil Saturday clarified that the bus had actually run over the skidded two-wheeler.
In a release, Patil said Shankar, the two-wheeler rider, had died on the spot after his vehicle skidded on the road and hit himself against the divider, a few moments before the bus ran over his vehicle.
However, the pillion rider, Erri Sway, managed to survive with minor injuries.
Before the accident, the duo had halted at a local petrol pump to fill fuel for the vehicel, said Patil. A video of their halt at the fuel station went viral.
According to Police, Shankar and Swamy had also eaten at a dhaba earlier. A source also noted that they had allegedly consumed liquor, but it is yet to be established with evidence.
Further, Kurnool collector A Siri said the DNA profiling of victims will take 48 hours and is expected to be completed by October 27.
Samples from 19 bodies were collected and sent to the Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Vijayawada.
“I am informed that it (DNA profiling) will take 48 hours. We are also arranging ambulances and vehicles that day so that as and when the results come we will transport those bodies to their respective places,” Siri told PTI.
According to the official, bodies were completely charred beyond recognition and without doing DNA profiling, their identity cannot be established correctly.
The flesh is completely charred and has become black and only the trunk part is left in most cases, she observed.
Currently, all the bodies are being preserved in Kurnool Government General Hospital (GGH) and they will be handed over to their relatives once the DNA samples arrive, she added.
