By Sunil Sonker
Dehradun, 26 Jun: A family coming to Mussoorie from Delhi narrowly escaped a major accident on Thursday when their moving car suddenly caught fire near Galogi Dhar on the Mussoorie-Dehradun road. The cause of the accident is said to be CNG gas leak. The fire spread so fast that the entire car was burnt to ashes in a few minutes, but luckily all the people sitting in the car got out in time and escaped safely. The incident happened around 10 a.m. According to eyewitnesses, as soon as the car reached near Galogi Dhar, the passengers sitting in it felt a strong smell of gas in the car and soon smoke started coming out of the engine and flames became visible. The driver immediately showed presence of mind and stopped the car on the side of the road and took out all the passengers. The four people in the car included two men, two women and a child, who had come to Mussoorie for summer vacations. The fire engulfed the entire car in a few moments. Being a hilly area, there was no water facility nearby, due to which the fire spread rapidly. After some time, the fire brigade team reached the spot and controlled the fire. However, by then the car was completely burnt. According to the initial report of the police and fire service, this fire broke out due to gas leakage from the CNG tank of the car. However, a forensic investigation will be conducted by the police to investigate the entire situation. It was fortunate that the car was not in any tunnel or market area at the time of the fire, otherwise the damage could have been even bigger.
Mussoorie police said that Amit Gangwar, aged 37 years, Anju Gangwar, aged 34 years, Amit Grover aged 44 years, Kartika Gangwar, aged 11 years, residents of Vivek Vihar, New Delhi, were in the car. No injury of any kind has been reported.
Due to the incident, traffic on Mussoorie-Dehradun Road was disrupted for some time. Traffic was normalised by removing the burnt car from the road. The Police and fire departments have appealed to all the drivers to get the oil and CNG tanks and wiring of their vehicles checked regularly especially before travelling to hilly areas. On this occasion, fire officers Dheeraj Singh Tadiyal, Gambhir Saini, Rajkumar, Dheerajpal Sharma, Abhishek Kukreti were present at the site.
