DAMMAM, 19 June — It was a nightmare for four-year-old Muhammad Akbar Naif Khan. His traumatic experience still haunts him even in his sleep. He is scared of school and cries at the sight of his school bus.
Last Saturday was like any other day for Khan, a UKG pupil at the International Indian School in Dammam. It was 6.30 a.m. when he boarded the school bus and like many other children, he fell asleep in his seat. When the bus finally reached school after crisscrossing many a bylane, all other children got off except Khan who was still fast asleep. The bus driver parked the bus in the vicinity and left after locking it.
According to Mohammed Anwar Saeed Khan, father of the child, his wife went to pick her son up at 12.30 p.m. but to her horror little Khan was missing. She immediately called her husband who works for Zamil Steel in Dammam Industrial City I.
Senior Khan rushed to the school and approached his son’s class teacher. “I thought your son had not come to school today,” she told Khan.
The search team came to the parking lot and found the bus parked. “I was surely relieved to see my son in the bus but his condition was such that even a stranger would have broken down. He had vomited all over the place. His pants were soaked as he had urinated several times and he was crying uncontrollably”.
Senior Khan immediately took his son back home and from there to a doctor who diagnosed acute dehydration and trauma. For a four-year-old to be locked up in a bus in 44 degrees Celsius was plain killing.
Khan took up the matter with the school principal Muhammad Anwar and registrar Gangesh Tiwari. Both passed the blame on Saudi Arabian Transport Company with which the school has a contract for the transport of children.
SAPTCO’s regional manager, however, said the responsibility of schoolchildren rested with the school. He quoted the contract which specifically says that an attendant and a teacher must be on board.
Meanwhile, Khan resumed classes from yesterday after much persuasion and cajoling by his parents.
