5-yr-old crushed to death in Ghaziabad: Driver of school bus says incident left him stunned

Following the incident, Rajveer remained at the spot and was arrested by the police, after passersby pulled the girl from under the vehicle and rushed her to a hospital. He was driving a bus of Silver Shine School.

“I was reversing the bus and heard some sound as if something got crushed under the wheels... I knew something wrong had happened,” said Rajveer, the driver of the school bus under which five-year-old Saumya was crushed near her residence on September 9.

The girl’s family members said that the driver was always in a hurry. (Sakib Ali/HT Photo)

Following the incident, Rajveer remained at the spot and was arrested by the police, after passersby pulled the girl from under the vehicle and rushed her to a hospital. He was driving a bus of Silver Shine School.

“As soon as I heard the sound, I turned off the ignition, went down and found Saumya under the wheels. I was shocked at the sight and could not gather the courage to pull her out. I sat down in the bylane. Locals arrived in numbers and vandalised the bus. Someone pulled Saumya out and rushed her to a hospital,” Rajveer said.

“Despite the development, the bus staff did not get down to see what had happened to the girl. It is the first such incident to have happened to me. I used to work with a gas agency but joined the school as a bus driver after the agency had shut. I have driven trucks and bigger vehicles but never met with a major accident,” he said.

Rajveer, the father of a class 11 boy and a class 3 girl, came from Mainpuri district to Ghaziabad in search of a livelihood around 25 years ago.

“Another driver called the police and they arrived in time. Otherwise, the angry mob would have lynched me,” Rajveer said.

He said that before Saumya, another student was dropped in Mehrauli, adjacent to NH-24. He said that Saumya’s grandmother, Dayawati, had come to pick her up. “Her head was severely injured but one of the locals held it together and held it till she was transported to the hospital on a bike,” Dayawati said.

Saumya was later declared dead.

Pooja Kashyap, Saumya’s mother, said, “He (Rajveer) usually drives the bus hastily and was always in hurry to get moving. Yesterday, he moved the bus into an adjacent lane where the incident took place. The lane is small and the bus had to be reversed to get back on the main road. It was in the lane that my daughter was killed.”

Meanwhile, the police arrested Rajveer and a member of the bus staff, Manju, both of whom will be produced before the court.

“The bus was seized after it was damaged by angry locals. Police had rushed in time, otherwise, the mob would have killed Rajveer. We have booked both under relevant sections of the IPC, which are bailable. However, we will produce them before the court and further action will be decided by the court,” Neeraj Kumar Singh, station house officer, Kavi Nagar police station, said.