THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Tens of thousands of people gathered in a Kerala village yesterday to pay homage to nine schoolchildren aged between five and eight, eight of them girls, who were mowed down by a speeding jeep as they were coming out of their school.
The tragedy that left the state shell-shocked struck Thursday evening at Sreenarayana Vilasam Lower Primary School in Irikkoor village of the northern Kannur district. Faces of the victims were disfigured beyond recognition as the vehicle ran over the children moving in a row.
“There are more than a dozen children in hospital and at least three of them are still battling for life. I have directed the health, transport and education ministers to go there and make sure that the children got the best available treatment,” Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan said as the news broke out.
The jeep’s driver Abdul Kabeer, a contract worker of the state-run Kerala Water Authority, is in police custody. Some eyewitnesses said he appeared drunk but the police, who booked him for unintentional homicide, refused to confirm this.
Body parts of the victims were found strewn in the spot along with their schoolbags, textbooks and lunch boxes. The home-bound children were on their way to their homes nearby when the killer machine hit and ran over them.
Eyewitnesses are divided over the cause of the tragedy. Some say it was not deliberate while others believe reckless driving could have led to the tragedy. Kabeer hails from Malappuram district and he has no previous case of any such offense recorded against him, police said.
“We are yet to establish the cause of the accident. We have cordoned off the area and measures have been taken to ensure that no evidence is destroyed. Initially, it looks like carelessness and we are looking into it,” Superintendent of Police S. Sreejith said.
The children who lost their lives were identified as Sajna (5), Mithuna (5), Ramshana (6), Nandana (6), Anushree (8), Sneha (8), Santra (8), Sona (7) and Vaishnav. Two were killed on the spot while the rest breathed their last on the way and in the district hospital 30 km away.
The bodies kept at the Pariyaram Medical College in Kannur were taken to their school Friday morning after the autopsy and were then kept there till 3 p.m. for the people to pay their last respects.
Parents, teachers and schoolchildren moved past the nine bodies laid in a row. Many were seen fighting back their tears. Revenue Minister KP Rajendran, Education Minister MA Baby, Health Minister PK Sreemathy and Transport Minister Mathew T Thomas also joined the mourners.
The driver told the police that he lost control while trying to save a child who ran to the middle of the road to pick up his slippers. His fellow traveler Saji said the driver was transporting materials from Malappuram, some 200 km away, without sleep for the past two days and they were talking when they met with the shock of their life.
“He might have applied accelerator instead of brake as he lost presence of mind while trying to save the child who ran in front of the jeep in her haste to cross the road. We immediately shifted them to the nearest available hospital in the same vehicle and he surrendered in the police station,” Saji said.
However, the Panchayat (village council) president Benny said the eight-meter wide road is well kept and there are no curves in a 400-meter stretch. “Speeding and the careless manner in which the driver was handling the vehicle are to blame for this,” he said.
School manager Shabeer said the teachers used to take extra care to ensure that the children, all of them living in a one-kilometer radius, reach home safely.
“The state highway in front of the school where this happened is not a busy one and we never expected this to happen to our children,” he said.
