Nine schoolchildren were injured, one of them seriously, when their speeding bus hit a tree and plunged 8ft into a ditch on Ganjia-Gamharia Road in Seraikela-Kharsawan, 20km from Jamshedpur, on Tuesday morning.
The bus was ferrying to campus 30 students of Classes II to VIII of Indira Gandhi Public Residential School, Gamharia, around 6am when the mishap took place.
According to police, the bus met with the accident owing to negligent driving. The injured children and driver Tilju (45) were rescued by local residents and admitted to Tata Main Hospital (TMH).
Seven students were released in the afternoon. The others and the driver, who received head injuries, are being treated. The condition of Class V boy Ratan Gorai (12), who sustained chest injuries, is stated to be serious.
"We had been asking Tilju (the driver) to go slow, but he was not paying heed. He perhaps wanted us to reach school on time. Suddenly, there was a jerk and I hit the steel rods. I felt a searing pain on my back," said Class VI student Abhishek Gorai (13).
Baidnath Gope (14), a seventh grader who luckily escaped with minor bruises, too said that the driver was being reckless. "I was seated in the middle rows. I could watch him speeding," said the boy.
Gamharia thana officer-in-charge Adikant Mahto inspected the accident site and also met the injured children in hospital. "We were monitoring the condition of the injured. By 1.30pm, seven children were released from hospital," he said.
School principal Pervez Khan, who came to TMH to meet the students, said the matter would be probed. "We will also ensure that such incidents do not recur. Necessary action will be taken against the driver," Khan added.
The Indira Gandhi Public Residential School is an English-medium cradles with over 500 students on its rolls from nursery to Class VIII. Though it is a residential school, most of the students come from the adjoining areas of Adityapur, Chandil, Sinni, Ganjia and Kandra. The school has four buses for ferrying students.
