It has been revealed that Bright School in Thanisandra, where three-year-old Mohammad Faisal had studied, had followed only eight of 14 safety directives stipulated by the Supreme Court regarding school vehicles.
The child was killed after being thrown out of a school van while alighting on Thursday.
This negligence of court guidelines is expected to get the school into trouble. Already, angry parents have demanded action against the management. In addition, police said that they will book the school for the child’s death. Police have also seized the driving licence of Bharat Singh, the driver of the school van responsible for crushing Faisal.
In the meantime, the child’s family reported that pressure has been developing against them from ‘dubious elements in the neighbourhood’, to drop the case.
“They want us to withdraw the case and go in for a compromise with the school authorities. They want to double cross us. We’ll never let them do that,” said Basheer Ahmad, the child’s grandfather.
He also disputed a police claim that Faisal frequently walked home after leaving the van each day. According to Ahmad, the driver would sound his horn after the van reached the main road about 50 feet from their home.
Faisal’s mother, Faheema Banu, would then go and collect the boy, who often slept in the vehicle. But in this case, as the driver had arrived fifteen minutes earlier, Faheema could not receive the child.
‘Singh is the driver’
Ahmad also denied that Bharat Singh was not the person who drove the vehicle. “I never told anyone that Singh was not the actual driver. Some vested interests in our locality are spreading lies about me.
They want to cause us problems,” he said, referring to a report in an English daily which quoted him as saying that he did not think Singh was the actual driver. He said that he had never ever been questioned by the daily concerned.
