Boy crushed to death after getting off school bus

Deekshith

A five-year-old boy died when the driver of the school bus he travelled ran him down on Monday afternoon at Huskur Gate.

The driver failed to notice Deekshith as he got down from the van and walked in front of the vehicle. Deekshith, son of Yamanurappa and Suneetha, was studying UKG at St Peter’s School in Kammasandra.

The family hails from Raichur district and lives at a rented place in the Electronics City.

Yamanurappa, a mason at a construction site, has a one-year-old child besides Deekshith.

Tension gripped the area as parents and residents gathered before the school premises and protested the authority’s negligence in deploying an attended to the bus to ensure the children’s safety. They also condemned the driver who failed to wait until the boy’s mother could receive him.

A senior police official said the driver, Chennappa, stopped the bus at Huskur Gate at 12.45 pm, where three children, including Deekshith, alighted. While two of them walked across the road from behind the bus, Deekshith went to the front. Thinking all the three were crossing the road from the back of the bus, Chennappa, in a hurry to drop other children, started the van.

Chennappa realised he had run down Deekshith when passersby noticed the boy under the wheel. He stopped the vehicle and fled the spot. The boy was left in the pool of his own blood.

The boy has been going to school started by a local man Muniraju three years ago. DH contacted Ramesh K, a resident, who said no one was there to take the boy to the hospital until the police arrived at 1.30 pm. “If they had taken the boy immediately, he’d have been saved,” he said.

Chennappa, 42, later surrendered to Hebbagodi police at 5.30 pm. He told the police that he did not notice the boy due to lack of attendant on the bus.

Hebbagodi police, who are investigating the matter, booked him for negligent driving and are probing further.