ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

30 school kids killed, 21 injured in MP mishap

Syed Firdaus Ashraf

Thirty school children were killed and 21 injured in Sagar, near Bhopal, in Madhya Pradesh when a tractor trolley plunged into a rivulet on Thursday night after colliding with a truck.

About 81 children, all belonging to the Bag Kejra school, were returning after the marriage of one of their teacher's daughters in Sagar when a dump truck collided head-on with it, causing it to crash off a bridge.

"The bridge on which the collision occurred was very narrow," District Magistrate Prabhanshu Kamal told Rediff On The NeT, in a telephone interview, "That caused the accident."

Fortunately, 30 children were saved when the army, along with the Home Guards, plunged into action. The entire exercise took 12 hours. All the injured were admitted to the local hospital in Sagar.

This is the second accident at the same spot. Six months ago, 17 people died when a bus plunged into the rivulet.

"We had requested the National Highway Authority of India to broaden the bridge. But the bridge did not figure in the 9th Five Year Plan and nothing was done about it," Kamal said.

The locals, too, had made the same demand to the NHAI. Further, they wanted the authority to erect walls on both sides of the bridge and build a speed breaker. But there was no response. NHAI officials were unavailable for comment.

The driver of the tractor trolley and teacher Rajkumari Rathore (whose daughter's wedding the children had attended) have been arrested.

The state government has announced Rs 10,000 as ex-gratia compensation to the nearest kin of the deceased. The families of the injured are to get Rs 2,000 each.

However, the locals, unsatisfied with the dole, blocked the Sagar-Narsinghpur road on Friday morning. They demanded Rs 200,000 for the dead and Rs 50,000 for the injured.

"The police had to resort to a lathi charge to bring the situation under control," Kamal said. Sagar executive magistrate M S Bilala will conduct an inquiry into the matter.

Tell us what you think of this report