It was, Vinod Kumar Gupta said, a vision from the deepest realms of hell.

The assistant manager of Dewana railway station was enjoying the cool midnight air when he saw the Samjhauta [Friendship] Express barrel past, flames roaring from two of its carriages.

Moments earlier a pair of crude bombs had exploded on board. But as the train sped through Dewana, a village about 50 miles north of Delhi, towards the Pakistani border, Mr Gupta realised that the driver had no idea of the horror unfolding behind him that would soon claim 67 lives. He ran to his office to radio the driver, who slammed on the brakes bringing the train to a halt several hundred yards down the line.

Only then did Mr Gupta hear the screaming. As he ran towards the train, terrified passengers were struggling to climb out of the doors and windows of the burning carriages.

But the windows were blocked by thick metal bars, and the doors were locked from the inside because of security concerns on the India-Pakistan route.

“People were burning to death,” Mr Gupta said. “Some were in there for half an hour.” Local villagers ran to the scene, bringing buckets and handfuls of water to try and put out the blaze, but fire trucks did not come for 45 minutes.

“From the less damaged coach, some people were seen jumping out with their bodies on fire,” said Bharti Arora, the superintendent of the Haryana state railway police.

Yesterday the carriages were still standing just outside Dewana station as police began to investigate an attack that was apparently designed to scupper India-Pakistan peace talks.

The interiors were completely gutted, the seats and luggage racks warped by the heat, the floor covered in molten plastic and burnt flesh, clothing, shoes and bags. The heat had peeled the paint of the exteriors and, according to investigators, melted at least one door shut.

Mehetab Singh, a sub-inspector in the local police, said that a suitcase packed with bottles of kerosene and explosives had been detonated using timers in each of the two carriages.

“The fire spread within a few minutes,” he said. “There was very little time to get out.”

Another two similar suitcases were found unexploded in other carriages.

Yesterday morning the rest of the green and yellow train, which was carrying about 600 people, continued to Pakistan.

At Wagah, the main border crossing on the Pakistani side, there were emotional scenes when passengers arrived to be met by waiting relatives. “I saw many passengers burnt to death as they could not open the door,” said one women, who cried as she was reunited with her son. Ameena Begum jumped out of her carriage when she saw the train catching fire. “It was not a big explosion but the fire spread rapidly,” she said.

Her husband suffered a heart attack as he tried to run away from the fire. “It was pitch dark and we did not know where to go,” she said.

Muhammad Hussain, 65, from Karachi, said that he was waiting for his wife, Rehman Bibi, and daughter, Asma, who had gone to visit relatives in India. “I don’t understand why I let them go,” he said, bursting into tears.

Musarrat Bibi, 60, was left wandering the platform. “Where is my son? Where is my mother? I can’t find them,” she wailed The bombing conjured up memories of the multiple explosions in Bombay last year that India blamed on Islamic militants with links to Pakistan.

Sunday night’s attack also came just a few days before the fifth anniversary of a fire on a train carrying Hindu pilgrims that killed 59 people in the western state of Gujarat.

That was also blamed on Islamic militants and sparked communal riots in which about 2,500 people died, most of them Muslims.

But the Indian authorities said that they were also investigating whether Hindu extremists could have been behind Sunday night’s attacks, as most of the victims were Pakistanis.

Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Pakistan’s Minister for Railways, said that he would raise the issue of locked train doors with his Indian counterpart.

The rail link between Delhi and Lahore mainly carries Pakistanis visiting relatives in India and is one of the most visible results of the recent peace process between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

First started in 1976 it was suspended following a 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament that India blamed on Pakistan, but reopened in 2004 when peace talks resumed.

The 67 bodies were taken to the nearest hospital in the town of Panipat where they were laid out on the floor of the mortuary in blue bags chilled by blocks of ice.

Medical staff there said that seven of the bodies had been identified, including four Pakistani nationals, two Indian police officers and one Kashmiri. They said that about half a dozen of the dead were children and 30 of the bodies were too badly burned to be identified by sight.

India’s Foreign Ministry said that it would issue visas urgently to Pakistani relatives of the dead and wounded.

Rising violence

— 2001 Gunmen launch suicide attack on India’s parliament in Delhi, killing 12. Pakistan quickly condemns the attack, though India accuses it of sheltering Kashmiri separatists believed to be responsible

— 2003 Nine Hindu fishermen are hacked to death in Marad, a village in Kerala, after four Muslims are killed in street fights. Bombs are later found in a raid on a local mosque

— 2005 62 die and 210 are injured by three coordinated bomb blasts in Delhi. The bombings, claimed by the Islamic Inqilabi terrorist group, come two days before the Hindu festival of Diwali

— 2006 A series of blasts in a Muslim cemetery in Malegaon, Maharashtra state, kill 31 people. Explosions appear timed to coincide with Friday prayers on the Islamic Shab e Bara’at holy day

— 2006 Seven bombs explode in 11 minutes on Bombay's suburban railways, killing 186 people. Police allege that Pakistan’s ISI security service colluded with Islamic militants in the attack

Source: Times archives

Times Recommends

• Mandela’s tribe threatens President Zuma
• The French empire strikes back
• Wife of cheating governor exacts a political revenge