Hyderabad: Thirteen passengers of a private bus were burnt alive and 22 others were injured, three of them critically, after the bus collided with a tipper truck while negotiating a curve on the highway in Andhra Pradesh’s Markapuram district on Thursday (March 26) morning. The deceased included a five-month-old baby Ambati Leo, and the baby’s father Anil, and a six-year-old girl Narasinga Kshetra, and her mother Prabhavati.Most of the victims were reportedly asleep in their sleeper berths in the single-door bus when the mishap occurred around 6.30 am. Four passengers who were charred beyond recognition near the door in the driver’s cabin bore telltale marks of the tragedy as people rushed to escape the fire. A few passengers managed to break the glass windows and jump out, according to eyewitness accounts.Preliminary investigation revealed that the driver expressed helplessness to the police saying the steering wheel was stuck while lead to the accident.Mitikyala Srinivasulu, uncle of one of the injured passengers told The Wire that the bus, belonging to Harikrishna Travels, left Jagtial district headquarters in Telangana around 4 pm on Wednesday (March 25). Srinivasulu’s nephew Manohar Rao (21), a mason in Jagtial, booked a ticket for his native village Jammalamadaka in Kanigiri mandal of Markapuram district, for Srirama Navami celebrations.On the way, the crew picked up several passengers heading for villages in Andhra Pradesh’s Markapuram and Nellore districts, until the bus was filled to its full capacity of 40 seats and berths in Nirmal in Telangana, the last pickup point. The bus left for its destination, Kanigiri in Nellore district, around 6 pm from Nirmal. After some passengers protested to the driver about the condition of the bus as they experienced rash driving, it was halted for an hour at Yerragondapalem for repairs. Shortly after resuming the journey, the bus collided with a concrete-laden tipper truck coming from the opposite direction from Cheemakurthi in Markapuram district.The bus and the tipper, both went up in flames due to the impact of the collision, and were completely burnt. The fire spread rapidly within the bus and engulfed the entire vehicle within minutes. All those who occupied the front seats and berths were evacuated with burn injuries. But, those who were left in the rear portion bore the brunt. Ten of them were burnt alive instantly while three succumbed to injuries in the hospital. This is the second fire accident in a private travels’ bus ferrying passengers in Andhra Pradesh in the less than five months. On October 25 last year, 19 passengers were burnt in a V. Kaveri Travels bus when it sped and ran over a bike lying on the road after the rider had skidded off and died by the roadside. The bus was going from Hyderabad to Bengaluru.Andhra Pradesh home minister V. Anitha and transport minister Mandipalli Ramprasad Reddy (to her left) and director general of police Harish Gupta (to her right) at accident site. In the background are the metal frame of the burnt bus and tipper truck. Photo: By arrangement.Andhra Pradesh transport minister Mandipalli Ramprasad Reddy, who rushed to the accident site today, said a task force was constituted to check the fleet of private travels after it was found that the ill fated bus in Kurnool was originally designed for seating only but converted into a sleeper coach later. The travels owner Vinod Kumar was subsequently arrested. Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu reviewed the situation with the home minister V. Anitha and basic infrastructure and investments minister B.C. Janardhan Reddy and senior officials. Telangana chief minister A. Revanth Reddy also took it up with chief secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a post on his X handle, announced an ex-gratia relief of Rs 2 lakh to the next of kin of the dead and Rs 50,000 to the injured. Control rooms were set up at Markapuram and Nellore to assist the relatives of the deceased and injured passengers. Nellore collector Himanshu Shukla supervised the rescue operation for fifteen passengers from the district. Two persons from Raikal near Jagtial in Telangana were among the dead while all the other passengers belonged to villages near Markapuram and Nellore.