There was two incidents of fire in the Khadgarha bus stand of the capital Ranchi at an interval of two hours on Thursday afternoon, in which nine buses got burnt. Eight buses were completely gutted, while one bus suffered minor damage. The police have accepted that the incident was carried out under a conspiracy. The first incident of fire took place at 12:50 pm, in which five buses were gutted. The second incident took place at 3:20 pm, in which four buses were burnt. In both the incidents, the drivers, porters and agents of the vehicles present in the stand tried to control the fire from their own level. Both the times the fire brigade was late in reaching the spot. Because of this the burning buses could not be saved.
After the first incident, the police have taken out the footage of the CCTV installed in the stand. In this, a suspicious person is seen standing near the Bhavani bus. In the second incident, the place where the fire broke out is far away from the CCTV camera. In the first incident that took place at 12:50, buses parked at different places caught fire. Three buses of Nishant and one bus of Bhavani standing at the bus stand were completely burnt. A bus of LD Motors parked in front got minor burns.
After extinguishing the fire of these buses, four fire brigade vehicles returned at 2:30 pm. The police was still taking information about the first incident, then the second incident happened at 3:20 pm. During this, the first Shivam bus caught fire. After that two buses including the school bus of LD Motors parked next to it and the Radheshyam bus parked in front caught fire. In the second incident also, the bus driver and other people tried to control the fire by pouring water from the pipe. During this there was chaos there. For the second time there was a delay of 35 minutes in the arrival of the fire brigade, due to which all the four buses were burnt to ashes.
The incident has been executed under the conspiracy. A five-member team of District Police and FSL will investigate the matter. The bus owners suspect some people, an FIR has been lodged by them. The police will investigate the entire matter. In such a big stand, there are CCTV cameras only at some places, while cameras should be installed on every side of the stand.
Shubhanshu Jain, City SP
The way the buses have been burnt, it is clear that the incident has been carried out under a conspiracy. After investigating this, the administration should take action against the culprits. A fire engine and an ambulance should be arranged near the stand itself. Municipal Corporation has installed CCTV cameras for show off. The corporation collects 1.5 crore annually from here, but there is no security system. If this is the situation, then we will stop giving money.
Sachchidanand Singh, President, Jharkhand Bus Owners Association
A five-member team of district police and FSL will investigate the incident
The fire broke out in these buses: Three buses of Nishant (Ranchi-Jamshedpur route), three buses of LD Motors (Ranchi-Dhanbad route), one bus of Radheshyam (Ranchi-Chaibasa route), Shivam bus (Ranchi-Siliguri) and one bus of Bhavani were included.
