Quick-thinking driver stepped on the gas and saved many lives from the terrorist attack

CHANDIGARH: It was Monday daybreak and 47-yearold Punjab Roadways driver Nanak Chand Sharma had 80 passengers on board his Pathankot-Chandigarh bus.

At 5.35 am, a man in Army fatigues, his face hidden behind a cloth signalled him to halt. Sharma sensed something amiss and stepped on the gas. The uniformed man, one of the three terrorists who struck at Dinanagar, fired a volley of bullets at the bus wounding two.

"Hearing the gunshots, I accelerated, and didn't stop till I reached Gurdaspur Civil Hospital where the injured were administered treatment. Had I stopped, all of us would be dead by now. They had automatic weapons. The other terrorists could have been hiding nearby and might have come out and fired. I didn't look back," he recalled.



"Everything happened in a flash. When death stares you in the face, survival instinct takes over. Thankfully everyone on the bus is safe," he said.

"It's my duty to keep the passengers safe. I've been driving for five years on this route," Sharma, a resident of a small village in Pathankot bordering J&K said. Sharma will be honoured by the state government for saving passengers from the terrorist attack.