Bomb blast in bus — 9 dead, five hurt

Most of the 34 passengers were asleep when the blast took place. The explosive device, suspected to have been planted in the rear luggage rack blew off the rear four seats of the bus. Hearing the blast, the staff of the nearby Sirhind police station led by SHO Sukhdev Singh rushed to the mishap site and began rescue work.

Punjab DGP Sarabjit Singh, who along with Patiala Range IGP R S Gill and DIG Sanjeev Gupta, visited the site of the mishap, said that the bomb had apparently been planted either at Jammu or at Madhopur where the bus had made a brief halt. He said that a team of experts of the Punjab forensic laboratory at Chandigarh, had taken samples of the explosive material from the site of the mishap and the nature of the material used would be clear after investigation.

The DGP said that the driver and conductor of the ill-fated bus had fled the site immediately after the blast. They had been traced at Karnal in Haryana and were being brought back.

SSP, Fatehgarh Sahib, Paramraj Singh Dhaliwal said that the blast had been caused by some terrorists as certain material recovered from the blast site were of the kind generally used by terrorist groups. However, no terrorist group had owned responsibility for the blast so far.

He said that while seven persons died on the spot one of the injured died at Fatehgarh Sahib Civil Hospital while another injured, who had been shifted to the PGI at Chandigarh in a precarious condition, succumbed to his injuries there.