Dum Dum Park: Twenty-five people had a narrow escape when the bus they were in hit an auto on VIP Road before ramming into a parked bus on Friday.

The accident occurred at the Dum Dum Park bus stop in the evening, police said.

Nine of the passengers were given first aid at Daffodil Nursing Home near the VIP Road-Lake Town crossing.

Several of the passengers Metro spoke to claimed the driver and the conductor had asked them to move to the rear of the bus moments before the accident.

"The brakes aren't working," Shefali Saha, 61, quoted the driver as saying. Saha said she was seated close to the rear wheel and injured her leg as she fell off her seat on impact.

Saha lives in Batanagar and was headed to her son-in-law's home in Kestopur. She said she had boarded the 12C/2 (Howrah-Dum Dum Park) bus at Ultadanga station.

"The bus was relatively empty and almost everyone was seated," she said.

As the bus neared the Dum Dum Park bus stop, the driver shouted something to the conductor, after which both of them asked the passengers to move to the rear of the vehicle, she said.

The bus turned left and hit an auto that was waiting to pick up passengers before ramming into a parked bus on the same route, a witness said.

"We saw the bus turn and could make out something was wrong when it suddenly hit the auto. Then there was a loud noise as the bus crashed into a parked bus," Pradip Mondal who was at the bus stop said.

The impact left the bus with a shattered front windscreen and a mangled bumper and the parked bus with its bumper in the rear damaged.

The auto on the Ultadanga-Baguiati route was damaged and the driver suffered cuts and bruises.

Of the nine passengers who were taken to the nursing home in Lake Town, Aruna Mondal, 38, had a wound in her nose stitched. Doctors gave Saha painkillers.

"Most had suffered cuts and bruises on their hands and faces. We discharged everyone after treating their wounds," a doctor at the nursing home said.

"The bus will undergo a mechanical test to ascertain if the brakes had failed," an officer of Bidhannagar commissionerate said. "It seems the driver purposefully rammed into the other bus to stop it."