MIRPURKHAS, April 7: A woman was burnt to death and many injured on Thursday when a group of transporters set ablaze a Naukot-bound van at Bandi Shakh on Mirpurkhas-Digri Road. The incident was the result of a rivalry between two groups of transporters.

Van operators and coaster service providers were tending an enmity over operations between Mirpurkhas and Naukot. The district administration stopped the van service which was resumed after court’s intervention but on different timings.

Reportedly, a van carrying 22 passengers, a driver and a cleaner left Mirpurkhas for Naukot in police escort.

Driver Safdar Abbasi said that four men stopped the van at gunpoint when they reached Bandi Shakh and dragged him out. However, the driver hid in the bushes and was saved but the men, after firing indiscriminately, sprinkled kerosene oil on the van and set it ablaze. The men then escaped in their car.

An eyewitness and a resident of village Kamal Khan Chang, district Badin said that she was travelling with her mother and both were sitting on front and back seats, respectively. She also alighted from the van when the driver was being dragged down but police and the gangsters did not allow her mother to come out when it was being set to fire despite her repeated appeals.

She said that she saw passengers including her mother getting burnt to death and identified her skeleton.

DPO Mirpurkhas Zulfiqar Maher told journalists it was the play of coaster group and culprits would be arrested after registration of the FIR.