Ranchi: Two AC passenger buses belonging to the well-known Pammi Tour and Travel Company in Hazaribagh caught fire at the town's bus stand on Saturday. Another bus of the same transporter had caught fire on Friday.

Bad luck in threes? The police and district transport office are sceptical, hinting, off the record, that insurance claims might be the reason.

No one was injured in these bus fires on Saturday and Friday as these were off road for the past six months or so.

Pammi also lost a bus this March and two others in 2017 due to alleged accidental fires.

Asked about the alarming frequency of bus fires of this particular company, Hazaribagh SP Aneesh Gupta said, "We have formed a special investigation team to probe the cases. These buses had gone off road following termination of road permits."

A senior officer at Hazaribagh district transport office said since 2010, Pammi, owned by Hazaribagh-based transporter Md Arshad Parwez had purchased some 20 buses, each costing around Rs 1.5 crore, with loans from Bank of India and a few others.

In 2015, Pammi had inked an MoU with the state government to provide AC bus services to different cities. Gradually, most of these banks started debt recovery moves against Parwez while most buses are off road as their route permits got cancelled over road tax and other irregularities, he said. The combination of no income and bank pressure might have been the reason behind the fires to claim insurance money, he added.

Asked if short-circuit could be a reason, he said batteries of the buses had been removed.

"Even if these fires were the handiwork of criminal elements, why did they spare other buses on the stand? Of course, the police may probe if these incidents are the outcome of the owner's personal enmities," the transport official said.

Parwez, however, could not be contacted for his version of the fires despite several calls made by his reporter.