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Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh), November 7 (IANS) Two weeks after 19 passengers were burnt to death in a bus near here, police on Friday arrested the owner of a private travel agency.
Vemuri Vinod Kumar, owner of V. Kaveri Travels, was arrested and produced before the court, which remanded him to judicial custody.
Vinod Kumar has been 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.
He was booked under sections 125 (A) and 106 (1) of the Indian Judicial Code (BNS) for causing death by rash or negligent act.
The bus was plying between Telangana and Karnataka via Andhra Pradesh, but was registered in Daman and Diu in 2018 and re-registered in Odisha this year.
The bus travel operator had also allegedly converted the built bus into a sleeper coach with seats in violation of rules.
The bus, which was carrying 46 people including two drivers and was on its way from Hyderabad to Bengaluru, met with a horrific accident near Chinnatekur village on the outskirts of Kurnool on the morning of October 24.
While 19 passengers, including two children, were burnt to death, 27 passengers, including the two drivers, escaped by breaking the windows.
Of the victims, seven 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 crushed a motorcycle lying on the road after hitting the road divider. The bus dragged the bike for about 200 meters and due to friction and fuel leakage from the bike, a massive fire broke out, which engulfed the entire bus in no time.
The police concluded that the bike rider B. Shiv Shankar (22) died after hitting the divider, while his friend Ariswami alias Nani, who was sitting behind and escaped with minor injuries, fled the spot in panic after seeing the flames in the bus.
After establishing the presence of a second person and identifying him from CCTV footage recorded at a petrol pump minutes before the accident, police arrested Eriswami from his native village Tuggali in Kurnool district and he revealed the cause of the accident.
Shiv Shankar, who was riding the bike and was drunk, died on the spot after his two-wheeler skidded and hit the road divider.
Eriswami told the police that he had pushed Shiv Kumar to the side of the road and was about to remove the bike lying in the middle of the road when a speeding bus hit the bike and dragged it for some distance. As soon as the bus caught fire, he panicked and ran away from the spot.
–IANS
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