The incident happened at 4.00 am local time near Ladhowal railway station, 10 kilometers from Ludhiana in Punjab.

According to initial reports, the fire began in the S-4 compartment and the S-3 and S-5 compartments caught fire soon after. The fire has now been put out, but the cause of the fire was not immediately known.

While 35 bodies were extricated from the worst-affected coach S-4, three were recovered from S-3.

The roof of S-5 coach was totally melted due to the impact of heat.

The spokesman said that the train has left Ladhowal station for Amritsar with the remaining passengers.

While the first few front coaches of the train had left for Amritsar at 6 am, the remaining rear coaches left at 7.15 am, the spokesman said.

Many bodies were charred beyond recognition, Railways Divisional commercial manager (Ambala) M S Meena said.

The injured have been shifted to Christian medical college hospital, civil hospital and Dayanand medical college in Ludhiana.

A passenger, Safi Pitoliwali, traveling with three other families from Daund, said when he got up early in the morning he saw some sparking near a toilet in his coach (S-5).

He said he immediately raised an alarm alerting other passengers and pulled the chain and the train stopped after 3-4 minutes.

He said he was going to Amritsar on a holiday. A police officer traveling in the train also passed on a message to his colleagues.

Railways have paid immediately ex-gratia of 300 rupees (US$6.38) to each of the affected passengers.

Train services on the main line Ludhiana-Jalandhar section have been suspended.

Divisional railway manager (Ambala) Keshav Chandra said that railways relief teams with medical personnel have reached the spot.

Railways officers of Ferozpur Division, in whose jurisdiction the accident site falls, have also reached the spot.

Another passenger, an army man, Havaldar A D Singh, who was traveling from Ambala to Amritsar in S-3 coach, said he immediately rushed to adjoining S-4 coach and rescued a number of passengers, including women and children.

But the thick blanket of smoke in the compartment hampered his going deep inside the sleeper coach which had more than its listed number of 72 passengers.

Ludhiana Civil Surgeon Dr S N Tiwari told local media at the accident site that most of the injured had "respiratory burns".

Army personnel had also joined the relief and rescue operations. The fire had broken out near Phaguwal village, residents of which were the first to rush to the rescue of train passengers.

Villagers were providing food and water to the train passengers.

A railways spokesman said that efforts were on to send the remaining passengers to their destinations, but the immediate priority was to provide rescue and relief to the passengers and clear the damaged bogies.

Meanwhile, Railways Minister Nitish Kumar expressed his "profound grief" over the tragedy involving Frontier mail and directed railway authorities to intensify relief and rescue measures.

Kumar, who is in Kolkata to inaugurate a national seminar on wagon technology Thursday, also directed the authorities to attend to those injured.

(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2003)