Kurnool : Two weeks after 19 passengers of a bus were charred to death near here, the police Friday arrested the owner of the private travel agency.
Vemuri Vinod Kumar, owner of V. Kaveri Travels, was arrested and produced before a court, which remanded him to judicial custody.
Vinod Kumar is named as accused number two in the First Information Report (FIR). Bus driver Miriyala Lakshmaiah, who is accused number one, is already in judicial custody.
They were booked under Bharat Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Sections 125(a) and 106(1) for causing death by rash or negligent act.
The bus was operating between Telangana and Karnataka through Andhra Pradesh, but was registered in Daman and Diu in 2018 and re-registered in Odisha this year.
The bus travel operator had also altered the bus meant for seating to a sleeper coach in alleged violation of rules.
The bus, which was carrying 46 people, including two drivers and was on its way to Bengaluru from Hyderabad, met with the ghastly accident near Chinnatekur village on the outskirts of Kurnool early morning of October 24.
While 19 passengers, including two children, were charred to death, 27 passengers, including both drivers, escaped by breaking glass windows.
Seven of the victims were from Andhra Pradesh, six from Telangana, two each from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and one each from Odisha and Bihar.
Police investigation revealed that the bus ran over a motorcycle lying on the road after the rider rammed it into the road divider. The bus dragged the bike for about 200 meters, and the friction and fuel leakage from the bike ignited the massive fire, which quickly engulfed the entire bus.
Police concluded that the bike rider, B. Shiva Shankar (22), died after hitting the divider while his friend Erriswamy alias Nani, who was riding pillion and escaped with minor injuries, fled the scene in panic after watching the bus in flames.
After establishing the presence of a second person and identifying him with CCTV footage recorded at a petrol pump a few minutes before the accident, the police arrested Erriswamy from his native village, Tuggali, in Kurnool district, and he revealed the cause of the accident.
Shiva Shankar, who was riding the bike and was drunk, died on the spot after the two-wheeler skidded and rammed into the road divider.
Erriswamy told the police that he shifted Shiva Kumar to the roadside and was about to move the bike lying in the middle of the road when the speeding bus hit the bike and dragged it some distance. As the fire engulfed the bus, he panicked and fled the scene.
