The police commissioner in the Indian city of Hyderabad said that 45 Indian pilgrims were killed after the bus they were traveling in caught fire in an accident near Medina in Saudi Arabia.
The bus was carrying 46 passengers, VC Sajjanar said in a press conference, adding that a man who survived the accident was transferred to the intensive care unit of a local hospital.
Most of the victims are from Hyderabad, located in the southern state of Telangana.
The Telangana government said in a press release that the pilgrims were traveling from the Islamic holy city of Mecca to Medina when the incident occurred.
They went to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah, an abbreviated version of Hajj, the largest Islamic pilgrimage.
Sajjanar said an oil tanker was involved in the accident but did not provide further details.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on the X website that he was “deeply saddened” by news of the incident and that Indian authorities were in close contact with officials in Saudi Arabia.
“Our embassy in Riyadh and our consulate in Jeddah are providing all possible assistance,” he wrote.
Control rooms have been established in Jeddah and Hyderabad to assist the families of the victims.
Asaduddin Owaisi, the lawmaker who represents Hyderabad in Parliament, told news agency ANI that he had asked the federal government to help repatriate the bodies of the victims to India.
Sajjanar said 54 people traveled from Hyderabad to Jeddah on November 9 to perform Hajj. Of these, four people stayed in Mecca while four went to Medina by car. The remaining 46 people traveled on the bus.
As news of the tragedy spread, distraught relatives spoke to the media.
Mohammad Tehseen, a resident of Hyderabad, told ANI that seven of his relatives were in the bus. Mr. Tahseen said that he heard the news after receiving a call from his relative Shuaib, who survived the accident and is in the hospital.
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2025-11-17 09:32:00
