Forty-five Indian pilgrims have been killed after the bus they were travelling in caught fire in an accident near Medina in Saudi Arabia, the police commissioner of India’s Hyderabad city has said.
The bus had 46 passengers, said VC Sajjanar in a news conference, adding that one man who survived the accident had been admitted to an intensive care unit in a local hospital.
Most of the victims are from Hyderabad, which is in southern Telangana state.
The pilgrims were travelling from the Islamic holy city of Mecca to Medina when the accident took place, the Telangana government said in a statement.
They had gone to Saudi Arabia for the Umrah pilgrimage, which is a shorter version of Hajj, the biggest Islamic pilgrimage.
Mr Sajjanar said that an oil tanker was involved in the accident but did not give more details.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said in a post on X that he was “deeply saddened” by the news of the accident and that Indian authorities were in close contact with officials in Saudi Arabia.
“Our Embassy in Riyadh and Consulate in Jeddah are providing all possible assistance,” he wrote.
Control rooms have been set up in Jeddah and Hyderabad to assist the families of the victims.
Asaduddin Owaisi, who represents Hyderabad in India’s parliament, told news agency ANI that he had requested the federal government for help in bringing the bodies of the victims back to India.
Mr Sajjanar said that 54 people had travelled from Hyderabad to Jeddah on 9 November for the pilgrimage. Of these, four people stayed back in Mecca while four went to Medina by car. The remaining 46 people travelled on the bus.
As news of the tragedy broke, distraught relatives have been speaking to the media.
Mohammed Tehseen, a resident of Hyderabad, told ANI that seven of his relatives were in the bus. Mr Tehseen said that he heard the news after receiving a call from his relative, Shoaib, who survived the accident and is in hospital.