Wails rend the air, as bodies of 28 victims of yesterday’s bus tragedy, most of them charred beyond recognition, were consigned to flames in a mass funeral at Barunighat in Baripada today.The pyre was lit jointly by the victims’ family members and relatives, who could not even figure out which body belonged to their dear one. Only the last rites of Chinmay Modi and Anil Modi were performed in a separate pyre. Police had to control the crowd as the unprecedented rush led to the collapse of the temporary barricades at the cremation ground.The bodies, brought here by road around 1.30 pm, were kept at Baripada Stadium to enable the people to pay their last respects. Later, the bodies were taken in three flower-decked trucks in a procession round the town. Mayurbhanj SP Y.B. Khurania said 28 of the 37 bodies found at the accident site had been sent to Baripada.Unconfirmed sources said at least 45 people were killed and 17 injured when a Howrah-bound bus from Baripada collided with a thinner-laden lorry, fell into a ditch, and caught fire near Paniara, about 40 km from Kolkata.Shops and business establishments, as also schools, colleges and offices in Baripada remained closed as a mark of mourning today. Three ministers Droupadi Murmu, Golak Naik and Balabhadra Majhi attended the funeral.Asked whether the bus was carrying highly inflammable material, WB DIG (headquarters) N.C. Ghosh said: ‘‘Unless forensic experts confirm the presence of any explosive chemical in the samples collected from the bus, we have no definite clue.’’Police sources, however, confirmed that the mandatory check on long-distance buses had not been done for the Howrah-bound bus.
