Mumbai: A six-year-old boy died on the spot when a BEST bus driver moonlighting as a private school bus driver ran him over in a no-entry zone at the T-junction near the Kandivli Recreation Club around 12.30pm after school ended for the day on Wednesday.
His mother who tried to rescue him fractured her right leg.
Lata Naidu, 35, had picked her son, Gautam, a Class I student of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Vidyalaya, up after school hours at 12.25pm. The two were crossing a vehicle no-entry road outside the school when the boy wriggled free and ran across. The mother ran after him. Just then, Jokhanlal Yadav, 54, a BEST bus driver who had been temporarily hired by a travel bus agency to run a private school bus, drove the vehicle with 81 students of the school onto the road.
“The mother and son were not aware that the bus had entered the no-entry zone. Gautam was running while crossing the road when he was hit by the bus,” said Hareshwar Pimple, senior inspector at the Kandivli police station. He died on the spot. “Lata, who was chasing him, was also hit by the bus and fractured her right leg,” added Pimple.
As soon as he hit the boy and his mother, Yadav fled the spot. Both Lata and Gautam were rushed to the Bhagwati Hospital in Borivli.
The police arrested Yadav at his house at the BEST quarters in Malwani and booked him under sections 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way), 338 (causing grievous hurt through an act endangering the life or personal safety of others) and 304-A (causing death by negligence) of the Indian penal code as well as under relevant sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.
They also sent him for a medical test to ascertain if he was drunk behind the wheel at the time of the accident.
Yadav was recently hired by a private school bus contractor, Mehta Travel Bus Agency, after its driver went on medical leave.
DNA Correspondent
December 6, 5:51 IST
http://www.dnaindia.com/mobile/report.php?n=1774028
