LUCKNOW, Oct. 28 -- While incidents of bus fires on expressways and highways continue to occur, prompting action, systemic failures in ensuring vehicle fitness and enforcing safety regulations persist. Despite casualties in earlier accidents this year, several privately operated long-route buses continue to run without proper fitness checks, raising passenger safety concerns. As many as 39 passengers travelling in a private sleeper bus had a narrow escape early Sunday morning after the vehicle caught fire near the Rewari toll plaza on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway. The bus, on its way from Delhi to Gonda via Lucknow, caught fire around 4:45am, a police officer said. All passengers were safely evacuated before the vehicle was gutted, he added. The incident comes amid rising concerns over sleeper buses across the country. SHO (Kakori) Satish Chandra said the driver had stopped the vehicle at a tea stall when locals pointed out the flames. "The quick response of the driver moved the bus about 500 meters closer to the toll plaza to enable smoother rescue. A major tragedy was averted," he said. Soon after the incident, the Kakori police sent a letter to the Regional Transport Office (RTO) seeking fitness details of the bus. "Once we receive the reports, we will examine whether these buses were running without valid fitness clearance," Chandra told HT on Monday. He added that recently a letter has also been written to the UP Expressways Industrial Development Authority (Upeida), requesting constant deployment of ambulances and fire safety vehicles at vulnerable stretches on the expressway. "Quick response arrangements are essential to avoid casualties in such emergencies," he said. This is not an isolated case. On October 24, another bus travelling from Delhi's Anand Vihar to Muzaffarpur overturned near the Mahri Nagar underpass on the same expressway around 4:30 am, injuring around 12 passengers. The survivors told police that they suspected the bus driver fell asleep while driving. Notably, the driver and conductor fled the spot before the police arrived, raising questions about accountability in private bus operations, Earlier this year, at least five passengers, including two children, died when a Delhi-bound sleeper bus caught fire near Mohanlalganj on Kisan Path, as reported by HT on May 15. The incident had sparked demands for stricter monitoring of long-route private buses, but enforcement appears unchanged. The series of accidents highlights persistent gaps in vehicle fitness certification, night-driving monitoring and expressway emergency response systems. Despite repeated warnings and loss of life, private buses continue to operate with minimal oversight, leaving passengers to rely largely on chance and driver presence of mind. "We have not received any such letter from the police station seeking information about the fitness of the vehicle, which recently caught fire. We will reply to it as soon as we receive it," said Lucknow RTO officer (enforcement) Prabhat Pandey....