Fifteen persons, including five women, were killed and 40 others were injured when a private bus rammed into a tree near Dhariwal in Gurdaspur district on Tuesday, police said.

The bus was coming to Batala from Gurdaspur when it rammed against a tree near Bidhipur village railway crossing near Dhariwal on Tuesday evening.

A three-year child escaped unhurt in the mishap in which the bus overturned after ramming into the tree, police said.

According to an eyewitness, the accident occurred about at about 5 pm when a bus belonging to a private transport company coming from Gurdaspur and going to Batala upturned and hit a tree.

At least nine persons including five women were killed on the spot.

The injured were rushed to Gurdaspur civil hospital and Naushehra Majha Singh village Community Health Centre where the condition of about half a dozen accident victims was reported to be serious.

As soon as the information about the accident reached Gurdaspur, a team of senior civil hospital doctors along with Gurdaspur Deputy Commissioner Gurkirat Kirpal Singh and senior police officials visited the spot to monitor relief measures for the accident victims.

While the identification of the accident victims and those injured could not be immediately done as some of them were lying unconscious on the hospital bed and unable to speak, the hospital sources said the driver of the bus Paramjit Singh, resident of Kathunangal, was one among those killed.

Three other dead persons were identified as Ajit Kaur, Joginder Kaur, both sisters and residents of Guru Nanak Nagar Batala and Paramjit Singh, employee of Dhariwal Municipal Council.

Though the cause of the accident was yet to be ascertained, it was suspected that the bus went out of control on the bad road.

The survivors said also alleging that the bus was being driven at speed.