4 charred to death, 10 injured as staff bus of graphics printing firm catches fire in Pune

PUNE : Four employees of Vyoma Graphics, a proprietorship printing services company, were charred to death and 10 others were injured after a fire broke out in the firm’s staff bus at Hinjewadi around 7.45am on Wednesday.
The condition of four of the injured victims was reported as critical, police said. “Prima facie, short circuit appears to be the cause of the fire,” Pimpri Chinchwad regional transport officer Sandesh Chavan, who inspected the bus, told TOI. DCP Vishal Gaikwad said, “A total of 15 people, including the bus driver and a woman staffer, were travelling in the 17-seater mini-bus, which picked them up as usual from Warje around 7am for going to their workplace at Hinjewadi. As it reached a spot in front of Dassault company, the driver realised that the engine had caught fire and tried to stop the bus. He could not stop the bus. In panic, he jumped out of the moving bus which proceeded driverless for some 200m before crashing alongside the footpath. By then, some other staffers in the bus managed to jump out of the vehicle but the four employees, who were occupying middle and back seats, barely got any time to save themselves and were engulfed by the flames.”
Vyoma Graphics owner Nitesh Shah, who was at the Ruby Hall Clinic with the injured patients, told TOI, “Our priority right now is to secure medical treatment for the injured survivors.”