Noida: The last thing 28-year-old Shashank Gupta told the bus driver was that he would step off the burning vehicle only after his mother did. He never got the chance.Late on Wednesday night, a private AC sleeper bus (BR32PA8647) bound from Kashmere Gate in Delhi to Mahoba caught fire near the 33km milestone of Yamuna Expressway in Jewar. By the time the flames were doused, nine of the 35 people aboard were dead. Twenty-six passengers, both drivers and the conductor, made it out alive. Shashank and his mother Sunita Gupta (47) did not.Their badly burnt bodies were identified on Friday, not by their faces, but by what survived of them. Family members recognised Sunita by her height and Shashank by a ring he wore.The two had boarded the bus, operated by Raj Kalpana Travels, almost by accident. Sunita had been living with her son in Gurgaon for about a month, receiving treatment for knee pain that had left her struggling to walk. When her husband Neeraj’s brother suffered a heart attack in Charkhari, Mahoba, three days before the fire, mother and son decided to travel there together. Train tickets were unavailable, so they took seats towards the rear of the sleeper bus instead.According to Neeraj, passengers on board had complained of a burning smell in the cabin well before flames were visible. He alleged the complaints went unheeded and the bus was not stopped, a delay he believes cost lives that might otherwise have been saved.Some passengers earlier told TOI that they had raised an alarm with the driver and conductor, who allegedly continued smoking inside the cabin rather than pulling over. Soon after, flames started near the driver’s seat, and smoke filled the bus within minutes.What followed was chaos. As flames spread, some passengers smashed windows and leapt from the moving bus while others rushed to the front and got off once the driver pulled over.“Amid that scramble, Sunita, unable to move quickly because of her injured knee, fell behind. Other passengers told me that Shashank refused to leave her side,” Neeraj said. “The driver and conductor both urged my son to get out while he still could. He refused, telling them he would only leave with his mother. He stayed, trying to pull her towards the door as the cabin filled with smoke, until neither of them could breathe and lost consciousness,” Neeraj said.Shashank worked as an engineer with IndiGo Airlines in Gurgaon. He is survived by his father and a younger brother Nikhil (22), who is still in college. Their bodies were taken back to Charkhari on Friday.Police also released the body of Omprakash Dhan Singh, the ninth victim identified. Six others were named a day earlier: Shruti Rawat (28) of Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, Saroj Gupta (52), Mayank Gupta (28) and Usha Devi (65), all of Hamirpur, Devendra Sahay Bhardwaj (60) of Hisar, Haryana, and Har Sharan Gupta (55) of Jalaun. All nine bodies have been returned to their families following autopsy, police said. Officials suspect a short circuit in the vehicle’s AC, with the lights and LED strips straining its electrical wiring, led to the fire.
