Tragic school bus accident leaves Shimla in shock
Shimla: A wave of shock, anger and rage gripped Shimla – the capital town of Himachal Pradesh following a tragic accident involving a school bus causing the death of two minor girls, one in Class –III, and also bus driver on Monday morning.
The entire town went into a state of mourning immediately as news about the tragedy spread all over the state.
Five other students, all girls, who were also in the ill-fated bus, were admitted to the Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) hospital, beside bus conductor Suresh, 43.
Senior medical Superintendent Dr Janak Raj said the condition of the injured persons including students was stabled and being closely monitored.
The accident took place around 7.30 am when the ill-fated HRTC bus no HP 63 3203, with seven students was on way to school from Jhanjhri, a down-town locality, and had to pick-up other students for the Convent of Jesus and Mary school.
Eyewitnesses said the driver Naresh Kumar was trying to negotiate a curb, where some private cars were parked on the roadside making the passage so congested that bus got exposed to the risk of tragedy. There were no crash barriers on the road or any other rad accident safety features.
It was, perhaps, either a case of 'error of judgement' by the deceased driver or sudden caving the loose soil at the road edge that caused a sudden jerk and bus plunged down into a deep gorge within seconds.
Hearing the deafening sound, dozens of locals rushed to the spot to save the children even as parents and relatives of the victims ran towards the accident site.
Superintend of police Shimla Omapati Jamwal said two children – Manya, 13 and Mehal, 15 died on the spot, besides driver Naresh Kumar.
"The police have registered the case and investigations were underway," he said.
Enraged citizens including a large number of women smashed dozens of cars, which were parked at the accident site alleging that it was due to unauthorised parking of these cars that bus accident took place.
Such was anger that crowd heckled and shouted down education minister Suresh Bhardwaj, who is also local MLA, for not ensuring the safety of the school children. They staged a dharna and raised slogans against the government.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur who rushed to the IGMC hospital said, "The government has ordered a magisterial probe into the accident. We will not spare anyone. A complete action will be taken."
What has shocked more than the accident took place in the heart of the town exposing complete callousness of the authorities towards the quality of buses provided to the schools to ferry children.
After Nurpur school bus accident in April 2018—when 23 children had died, the government had made it mandatory for the school buses to have speed governors and GPS monitoring. But, this has not been ensured in case of HRTC buses on school duties.
Only last week 44 persons, mostly college students, had lost their lives in a private bus accident at Banjar in Kullu.
Himachal Pradesh High Court today indicated that it will take -up to the matter on Tuesday in its suo-moto action after some lawyers made a mention in the court.
