GURUGRAM: A private bus caught fire while moving just opposite Huda City Centre Metro station on Monday morning. The driver and the school kids escaped narrowly. The reason behind the fire is yet to be ascertained, as the bus driver managed to slip away. It later transpired that the bus was contracted by Amity International School, Sector 43 to transport students from Palam Vihar, yet again raising uncomfortable questions about the state of transportation for city schools.Rahul Madan, Class X student at Amity, said some of his friends who were in the bus had told him they started screaming when they smelt smoke. Two teachers who were in the bus were the first to react. Along with some students, they tried prise open the doors of the diesel-powered 2012-vintage vehicle with proper fitness certificate, which got jammed after the driver shut down its engine. Even the emergency doors would not open, allegedly because they were shut from outside.Madan said his friends told him when onlookers saw the students stuck inside, they opened the emergency doors from outside. He also told TOI his friends had said there was no fire extinguisher in the bus, nor emergency systems to deal with such a situation, which school authorities later dismissed as baseless, claiming the bus was in fact equipped with GPS and CCTV. There were 35 children — studying in classes Nursery to XII — present in the bus.According to Beerbal Sharma, the Gurgaon fire officer who attended the emergency, they received a call about the fire at 8am. When they reached the spot, though, the bus was empty and engulfed in flames. Two fire engines were pressed into service, which doused the flames in 20 minutes. "Our team reached the spot in just five minutes, and doused the fire in 20 minutes with the help of two tenders. There was no report of any casualty, but the reason behind the fire is not clear yet," said Sharma.Satish Raghav, an onlooker, said the bus had just reached the Metro station on its way towards Signature Towers, when the driver saw smoke emerging from the engine, pressed the emergency brake and screamed to the kids to get off. "For around 5 minutes, there was complete chaos, as the passengers who escaped ran helter skelter. They had barely escaped when the bus was engulfed in flames. Soon, the fire brigade reached to douse the fire, but by that time, all occupants had disappeared," he added."We're trying to identify the owner of the private bus. No complaint has been received yet, and the damaged vehicle has been removed from the road," said inspector Vishal Kumar, SHO, Sector 29 police station.Later in the day, the bus was identified as attached with Amity International School, Sector 43. Anshu Arora, principal of the school, said, "In an untoward incident this morning, one of our buses hired through a contractor emitted smoke while stationary near Huda City Center. All 35 children inside the bus were immediately rescued by the two teachers, a lady guard, conductor and driver. The bus later caught fire. By God's grace, all students are fine. The middle school children even sat for their unit exams."Upasana Dahiya, a medical officer at General Hospital, whose son was on the bus, said she got a call from the school around 11.20am that her son's bus had a 'short circuit', but that everything was fine. She only realised the magnitude of the fire after she got in touch with another parent from the same school.A miffed Dahiya questioned the justification of contracting private buses, instead of the school running its own yellow buses. "Why do they provide private buses when we're paying full money? And who's responsible for their maintenance," she asked.

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