Nooriabad bus fire victims laid to rest

Police register FIR against bus owner, driver for murder, criminal negligence

HYDERABAD/KARACHI:

Victims of the Nooriabad bus fire were laid to rest at their ancestral village in Khairpur Nathan Shah on Thursday.

At least 18 flood survivors, including eight children and nine women, were killed when the bus they were traveling in caught fire near Nooriabad. They were going home to their village in Khairpur Nathan Shah.

The deceased included Imdad Mugheri, his mother, wife, three sisters, six daughters, five sons and a nephew. The flood affected family belonged to Khairpur Nathan Shah taluka of Dadu district.

Meanwhile, the Jamshoro district police have booked the owner and driver of the coach which caught fire on M9 Motorway on October 12 and claimed the lives of 18 persons of a family.

The complainant, Sub Inspector Ali Asghar of National Highway and Motorway Police, stated in the FIR registered at Nooriabad police station that the vehicle was unfit.

The coach driver Imran Shaikh and owner Noor Malik have been booked in the FIR under sections 302, 427, 279 and 322 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). Some 55 passengers were travelling in the bus and among them 37 managed to escape from the burning vehicle.

The charred bodies of 18 victims of Wednesday’s deadly bus blaze near Nooriabad were shifted to the Edhi mortuary in Sohrab Goth for final rites. The victims were flood affectees and they were returning to Khairpur Nathan Shah after water receded from their villages. The bodies were given bath, shrouded and packed in coffins and dispatched to their native town for burial.

M9 Motorway officer Syed Farhan Ahmed, while talking to the media, said that the emergency door of the bus was working properly, while its speed was also within the limit. While citing the preliminary report, he said that the fire broke out due to a short circuit in the air conditioner on the back of the bus.

Saad Edhi of the Edhi Foundation told the media that the bodies were charred beyond recognition. “The body of one woman was recovered from the bus who was holding her little child in her lap. Perhaps she wanted to save her child and both were burnt to death,” Saad said. “Their bodies were stuck together in death. They will be buried together.”

Saad further said that the bodies were shifted to Karachi because there was no arrangement in Nooriabad, Kotri or Hyderabad for bathing and shrouding so many bodies at the same time. “Now, the bodies are being sent to their native town in our ambulances,” he added.

Speaking to the media, Muzaffar Mughiri, a relative of the deceased, said that all of them were flood victims. “They were shifted by the Sindh government to Mangho Pir, Karachi, after flooding in KN Shah. On Wednesday night, they were returning home after water receded from their village,” he added.

Mughiri said that all those travelling in the bus were related. They were families of six siblings, so there is no need for DNA tests for identification of the bodies. “It was an accident. No one was at fault. We have accepted it as the will of God and pray to Him for patience to bear this loss,” he added.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2022.