An eight-year-old girl was crushed to death by a school van outside her house in Chandra Layout on Wednesday.
Namitha, a class II student of Siddaganga Public School in Chandra Layout, alighted from the van in front of her house. Since she forgot to take her schoolbag, her friends threw it out of the window and it fell near the rear wheels of the van.
Namitha was trying to pick the bag, when the driver moved ahead and knocked her down.
Namitha was rushed to Fortis Hospital in Nagarbhavi, where she was declared brought dead.
The body was later shifted to Victoria hospital for post-mortem.
The Byatarayanapura traffic police have arrested Fairoz Khan (26), the driver of the van. The police are verifying if he had proper documents. Fairoz has been working as the driver of the school for the last three years.
Similar incident
It may be recalled that in June 2012, four-year-old Mohammed Faizal Noorullah was killed when his school van’s door hit him after he had alighted from the vehicle near his house in Chikkajala off Bellary Road. Faizal had come under the wheels of the van and died on the spot. There was no assistant in the bus, which had 15 students at the time of the incident.
Guidelines
Taking note of the accidents involving school vans, the city traffic police had issued guidelines to schools across the city.
The guidelines included installing speed governors in school vans and restricting the number of children.
The driver of the van should be fit, have a valid licence and should be accompanied by an attendant to help the children board and alight. Drivers and attendants have been instructed to ensure the safety of the children in case of any eventualities.
