15 hurt in Jalandhar bus blast

AMRITSAR: At least 15 people were injured, most of them gravely, on Friday when a blast ripped through a passenger bus in Jalandhar, a police official said. 

The bus was leaving the main bus station for Unna in nearby Himachal Pradesh when the explosion occurred at about 4:00 pm, the official said.

More than 50 people were travelling on the state-run service when the explosion rocked the crowded bus station igniting a massive fire, witnesses said.

"At least 13 people are critically wounded with serious burns," the police official said by telephone from Jalandhar, asking not to be named. Two others were hurt.

"At this stage we cannot rule out sabotage or some material which is highly inflammable," said Jalandhar police chief Hardeep Dhillon when asked if a bomb had caused the blast.

Forensic experts were on the job, he said. "The explosion occurred the moment it began moving out. It was a deafening sound," a local shopkeeper said by telephone, adding that police and rescuers were ferrying the wounded to local hospitals.