A moving sleeper bus caught fire on the Delhi-Gurugram Expressway on Wednesday night, resulting in the death of two and injuring over a dozen, said police. 

Video footage from the scene showed the bus engulfed in flames, with plumes of smoke rising into the night sky. The cause of the fire was not known immediately.

The incident took place around 8:30 pm near the Jharsa flyover on the main carriageway from Delhi to Jaipur, said Fire Department Deputy Director Gulshan Kalra.

“Three fire engines were rushed to the spot after we received information that a sleeper bus with registration number AR 01 K 7707 had caught fire on the carriageway,” the officer told news agency PTI.

Gurugram’s Civil Hospital’s Dr Manav confirmed seven injured are undergoing treatment at the facility.

“All injured have suffered 30 to 50 per cent burns but are stable,” he said.

A drug smuggler was arrested by the Border Security Force (BSF) when he came to collect two packets of heroin that were airdropped by a Pakistani drone near the International Border in Amritsar, an official said on Wednesday.

The BSF troops intercepted the drone and also heard the sound of it dropping something near Bachhiwind village on the intervening night of November 7 and 8, the BSF official said.

During a search operation, the BSF personnel noticed that two smugglers were trying to escape from a paddy field. After a chase, one of them was arrested while the other managed to flee, according to the official.

The BSF troops along with Punjab Police later recovered two packets of heroin weighing 1.050 kg from the field and two motorcycles of the smugglers.

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Vigilant troops of @BSF_Punjab apprehended a smuggler who had come to collect a consignment of drugs dropped by a Pakistani drone. Following questioning, @BSF_Punjab & @PunjabPoliceInd… pic.twitter.com/9pJi1AZctF

— BSF PUNJAB FRONTIER (@BSF_Punjab) November 8, 2023

“Vigilant troops of @BSF_Punjab apprehended a smuggler who had come to collect a consignment of drugs dropped by a Pakistani drone. Following questioning, @BSF_Punjab & @PunjabPoliceInd (@AmritsarRPolice) launched a joint search operation and seized appx 1 kg of heroin.

“Additionally, two motorcycles belonging to other smugglers who were accompanying the apprehended individual were seized by BSF from Village Bachiwind,” the BSF said in a post on X.

In another incident, the BSF recovered a bottle containing 350 grams of heroin from a field near Dhanoe Khurd village in Amritsar, officials said.

More than 2,000 farm fires were reported from Punjab on Wednesday, a day after the Supreme Court issued directions to ensure stopping of crop residue burning “forthwith”.

Sangrur district, the birthplace of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, recorded the maximum number of stubble burning incidents in the state on Wednesday.

Many parts in Haryana saw air quality indices in the ‘severe’ and ‘very poor’ categories.

The total number of farm fires jumped to 22,981 in Punjab with 2,003 fresh such cases being reported on Wednesday, according to Ludhiana-based Punjab Remote Sensing Centre data.

Out of the 2,003 stubble burning incidents, Sangrur continued to top with 466 such cases, followed by 221 in Bathinda, 216 in Barnala, 150 in Faridkot, 131 in Mansa, 106 in Patiala, 103 in Ferozepur and 96 in Ludhiana, according to the data.

Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav on Wednesday asked the police officers to work in tandem with the civil administration to prevent stubble burning in the state.

The DGP also appointed Special DGP (Law and Order) Arpit Shukla as the police nodal officer to monitor action against stubble burning, according to an order.

“The police nodal officer shall issue suitable directions, hold meetings, conduct tours and collect and collate relevant information and put up to the DGP Punjab and the Chief Secretary so that monitoring of the actions being undertaken by the police to ensure compliance of the directions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court is done in an effective manner,” the order read.

Out of total 22,981 farm fires recorded from September 15 till November 8, Sangrur is leading with highest number of stubble burning cases of 4,070, followed by 2,176 in Ferozepur, 1,888 in Tarn Taran, 1,719 in Mansa, 1,524 in Patiala, 1,454 in Amritsar, 1,436 in Bathinda, 1,129 in Barnala, 1,089 in Ludhiana and 1,014 in Faridkot.

Meanwhile, Haryana’s Fatehabad recorded an air quality index (AQI) of 451, followed by Faridabad at 425, Jind at 406, Bhiwani at 400, Gurugram 385, Kaithal 380, Rohtak 362, Hisar 332, Panipat 323 and Sisra 319.

In Punjab, Bathinda reported AQI at 348, followed by Mandi Gobindgarh at 338, Ludhiana 292, Patiala 267, Jalandhar 266, Khanna 253 and Amritsar 240.

The Union Territory of Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, saw an AQI of 201.

An AQI between zero and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 and 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 ‘poor’, 301 and 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 ‘severe’.

Paddy straw burning in Punjab and Haryana is considered one of the reasons behind the alarming spike in air pollution levels in the national capital in October and November.

As the window for wheat, a key rabi crop, is very short after paddy harvest, some farmers set their fields on fire to quickly clear off the crop residue for sowing of the next crop.