19 Passengers Burned To Death In Accident, Bus Driver Sentenced To 190 Years In Prison

Illustration of a bus crash in India. (Wikimedia Commons/Balajijagadesh)

JAKARTA - A bus driver was sentenced to 190 years, 10 years in prison for each of the 19 passengers who were burned alive in a road accident in May 2015.

Mohammad Shamshuddin, 47, was convicted by a court in Panna District, Madhya Pradesh State, central India on Friday 31 December.

Shamshuddin was driving a bus carrying 65 passengers when it fell off the bridge and plunged into the dry canal below. The bus immediately caught fire, killing 19 passengers and injuring more than a dozen people.

During the investigation, it was found that Shamshuddin was driving recklessly and the vehicle's emergency exit had been modified illegally. Emergency exits were blocked with iron bars and extra seats had been installed, trapping people on the burning bus.

Some of the victims suffered burns so severe that their bodies were beyond recognition.

Judge RP Sonkar said Shamshuddin was guilty of murder. Prosecutors claim Shamshuddin's sentence is not only extraordinary but the first of its kind in a country, where road deaths are high but penalties are rare, ranging from 5 to 10 percent.

Illustration of a bus terminal in India. (Wikimedia Commons/Biswarup Ganguly)

Indian courts generally avoid convicting people on separate counts, with imprisonment sentences handed down simultaneously.

"Postmortem and DNA confirmed 19 bodies and 19 deaths counted. The driver has been sentenced to 190 years, 10 years each for murder. We are relieved by the decision," public prosecutor Jitendra Singh Bains told The National News, as quoted January 2. .

"The owner was also convicted of negligence and murder, for 10 years. He had closed the exit gate with a stick and the passengers were unable to escape because of that," Bains continued.

Meanwhile, bus owner Gyandendra Pandey, is also on trial on charges of murder and death, due to negligence under the Indian Motor Vehicle Act. He has been sentenced to 10 years of forced labor.

But Mr Pandey's lawyer, JK Rao, described the ruling as "third class" and said it would be challenged in a higher court.

"Both have been convicted. The sentences were consecutive for the driver but this is a third class judgment. We have appealed to the high court. They argue that the killing was without intent but with knowledge," Rao said, referring to allegations that the bus driver knew the vehicle was not safe.

"But, there is no evidence to prove that. My client had no malicious intent to commit murder," he said.

To note, India has some of the deadliest roads in the world. Every year tens of thousands of people die in accidents due to negligence, faulty road design, weak safety laws, and corruption. Road accidents are one of the biggest causes of unnatural death in the country.

At least 133,715 people died in road accidents in 2020, according to the latest figures released by the National Crime Records Bureau. Some 79,000 accidents are caused by driving negligence, but the overall penalty rate is low.