AMRITSAR, April 28: At least 15 people were injured, most of them gravely, on Friday when a blast ripped through a passenger bus in the northern Indian city of Jullandhar, a police official told AFP.

The bus was leaving the main bus station at the Punjab town for Unna in nearby Himachal Pradesh when the explosion occurred at about 4pm (1030 GMT), the official said.

More than 50 people were travelling on the state-run service when the explosion rocked the crowded bus station igniting a massive fire, witnesses said.

“At least 13 people are critically wounded with serious burns,” the police official said by telephone from Jullandhar, asking not to be named. Two others were moderately hurt.

“At this stage we cannot rule out sabotage or some material which is highly inflammable,” said Jullandhar police chief Hardeep Dhillon when asked if a bomb had caused the blast.

Forensic experts were on the job in the city some 80 kilometres south of Amritsar, he said.

“The explosion occurred the moment it began moving out. It was a deafening sound,” a local shopkeeper said by telephone, adding that police and rescuers were ferrying the wounded to local hospitals.—AFP