There were 49 passengers on board; 41 managed to escape, the police said.
The bus was driving through Haveri in north Karnataka at about 3 am, when it hit a road divider and the diesel tank burst in a terrifying rerun of a gruesome accident just two weeks ago, when another bus from Bangalore had caught fire killing all 45 on board.
Two drivers and a cleaner on the Mumbai-bound bus ran away as the vehicle caught fire last night. The passengers who escaped managed to do so by breaking the glass on windows and jumping out of the burning bus, the police said.
The bodies of the dead are yet to be identified.
The injured are being treated at the Haveri district hospital and some have been shifted to the Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) Hospital in Hubli.
On October 30, 45 people were killed when a Hyderabad-bound bus from Bangalore caught fire after hitting a road divider, causing the fuel tank to burst on the national highway in Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh.
Both accidents happened in the middle of the night when most passengers were asleep.
