‘Terrorist told driver to make passengers deboard, but he speeded up, was shot; he sacrificed himself’: Bus Manager

Udhampur (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], June 11 (ANI): Ranjit Singh, manager of the bus booking company whose bus came under attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Reasi on Sunday evening, recounted the attack horror and said that the driver sacrificed himself for the passengers.

As many as nine people were killed and 42 others were injured after a bus carrying pilgrims from Shiv Khori shrine was ambushed by terrorists on Sunday evening, June 9, in Reasi district. The bus plunged into a gorge following the attack.

In a conversation with ANI, Singh said, “The bus used to ply from Katra to Shiv Khori daily, booking occurred daily. But we had never thought that this could happen to our vehicle. We used to hear of things like this in Kashmir but this area was safe. We never thought that this could happen to us. As soon as the bus left in the morning, we received a call at 5 o’clock that there had been firing on our vehicle…When we did a little investigation, we came to know that it was an attack by militants…Passengers told us that the militant got into the bus and told the driver to make the passengers deboard the bus.”

“The driver sensed that the man was a militant. He refused to make the passengers deboard, he sped up the bus. As soon as he sped up the bus, the militant fired a bullet. The bus lost balance but the driver kept driving. When the driver didn’t stop, he (militant) shot him in the head and killed him…Then the conductor took hold of the steering. As soon as he did that, the militant shot 3-4 bullets at the conductor too. He killed them both. The bus lost balance and fell into a gorge”, he added.

The manager further stated that had the driver not shown his presence of mind, no passenger would have survived.

“Had the driver not shown a presence of mind, no passenger would have survived. They might have even set the bus on fire. The driver did well and sacrificed himself for the 40 passengers”, he said.

Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir police have said that the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba is believed to be behind the attack. JK police have formed 11 teams to investigate the attack.

A team from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) assessed the situation in Reasi on Monday and the NIA’s forensic team is working on collecting evidence.