LUCKNOW: Sixty people were burnt alive when a bus packed with Hindu pilgrims caught fire in northern India, police said on Wednesday.The bus was travelling on Tuesday evening on a national highway near Agra, the city of the Taj Mahal. The victims, including 17 children, were returning from a Hindu pilgrimage in the town of Mathura."The bus was carrying more than 90 passengers of which 61 were inside," Agra deputy inspector general of police N.P.Srivastava said while talking to a news agency by telephone."The rest had perched themselves on the roof-top , when the bus suddenly went ablaze. While the ones on the rooftop managed to jump off and save their lives, those inside lost their lives." Police said the fire was caused by a mechanical fault.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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