8-year-old crushed by reversing school van in Gurugram, driver held

The Class 1 student stumbled on the road and fell behind the vehicle, which failed to spot him while reversing, police said.

An eight-year-old boy died on Monday after he stumbled and fell on the ground and came under the wheels of a school van, which was reversing in Maruti Kunj, Bhondsi, a police officer said on Tuesday.

The driver fled the spot but was arrested later, with CCTV footage helping investigators reconstruct the sequence of events. (HT)

The 29-year-old driver, a resident of Motihari in Bihar’s East Champaran district, who fled from the spot, was arrested on Tuesday night, the officer said, adding that he was living in Bhondsi and ran a private school van.

The deceased, Shivansh Tripathi, was a Class 1 student at a private school in the city. Police said the boy had gone to a neighbourhood shop to purchase chocolate after returning from school and on his way back home, stumbled after hitting a brick on the road and fell right behind the van of a private school, which was reversing, leaving him trapped and critically injured.

Neighbours pulled out the boy and alerted the family, which rushed him to a private hospital in Sector-38, where doctors declared him dead on arrival, Sandeep Turan, public relations officer (PRO) of Gurugram police, said.

The PRO said it took several minutes for the locals to pull the boy out and that the entire accident was captured on CCTV, from which it became clear that the boy first fell on the ground behind the van and was then mowed down.

According to police, at least four students were inside the van when the accident occurred.

On the complaint of the deceased’s father, an FIR was registered against the van driver under sections 106 (causing death by negligence) and 281 (rash driving) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at Bhondsi police station on Monday. The body was handed over to the family after autopsy on Tuesday.