RIYADH, 20 March 2007 — A student that earned nearly an A+ average at the International Indian School of Riyadh (IISR) died in a tragic road accident yesterday morning.
Shaikh Maaz Ahmed, 14, a ninth grade student, was crossing the traffic light in front of the school in the Rawdah area when he was run over by a speeding car coming from the opposite direction at approximately 6.45 am. By the time he was rushed to the Riyadh Central Hospital at Shumaisy, he was declared dead.
Reliable sources told Arab News that the boy’s father, Shaikh Ghufran Ahmed, an employee at the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), had dropped his son on the service road on the opposite side of the school before heading north in the Rawdah district.
The boy apparently did not notice the incoming vehicle when he tried to cross the road toward the IISR building. The Saudi driver returned to the scene of the accident and surrendered to the police. The boy’s body remains at the hospital morgue pending an inquiry into the accident.
A condolence meeting was held at IISR yesterday at which Principal Manzar Jamal Siddiqui mourned the tragic death of the student. He was said to be a rising star of his class and had scored 96 percent in the aggregate last year.
Following the accident, the principal issued a circular in which he called on the parents to either use the school’s bus facility or drop their children in front of gate Nos. 1 and 4. Maaz’s younger brother is a student of second grade while his elder sister studies in Aligarh, in northern India.
According to a report issued by the traffic department, 283,684 traffic accidents took place in the Kingdom last year, resulting in the death of 5,883 people. It also showed that one person died every hour last year as a result of accidents.
Meanwhile, highway police have started stopping reckless drivers after the department found 63 percent of total traffic violations (2.88 million) took place on highways in 2006. Highway police detected 1.8 million traffic violations last year.
