Bus taking Kerala schoolkids on trip to Ooty crashes, 9 killed
The tourist bus was carrying students from a school in Ernakulam district to Ooty. State Transport Minister Anton Raju ordered a probe and said the bus had been blacklisted by the transport department for repeated violations, including over-speeding.
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Students of Baselios Vidyanikethan pay their respects to their classmates and teacher whodied in the accident. (Express photo by Nitin RK)Five school students and a teacher were among nine people killed when a tourist bus rammed into the back of another bus in Vadakkencherry town in Kerala’s Palakkad district at around midnight on Wednesday. Another 12 people were critically injured.
The Kerala High Court on Thursday took suo motu cognizance of the matter and directed the state transport commissioner to appear before it on Friday.
Students and teachers from the Baselios Vidyanikethan School in Ernakulam district’s Mulanthuruthy were being taken in the tourist bus to Ooty in Tamil Nadu, and the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus was going from Kottarakkara in Kerala to Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, police said. Three passengers of the KSRTC bus also died. A total of 40 passengers from both vehicles suffered injuries.
Ordering an investigation into the incident, Kerala Transport Minister Anton Raju said overspeeding of the tourist bus was one of the reasons for the accident.
“The tourist bus was running at a speed of 97.2 kilometres per hour at the time of the accident. It seems the bus driver had been behind the wheel for several hours continuously. Before starting the Ooty trip from the school in Ernakulam on Wednesday evening, the tourist bus had just returned from a Velankanni trip. The same crew had ventured for Ooty,” he said.
The minister said the bus had been blacklisted by the transport department for repeated violations, including overspeeding. “All schools have been instructed to inform the local office of the motor transport department once they hire buses for study tours and other trips. In this particular incident, prima facie, I understand that the school did not inform the regional transport authorities about the bus that they had hired for the Ooty trip,” he said.
A tourist bus crashed into a KSRTC bus in Vadakkenchery in Kerala’s Palakkad district. (ANI)
The driver of the tourist bus, Jojo Pathrose alias Jomon, was arrested hours after he fled from the spot. Police also arrested bus owner Arun and manager Jasvin on charges of helping the driver flee from a hospital where he was admitted after the accident.
President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were among leaders to express their condolences over the loss of lives. Modi announced that the families of the deceased would get Rs 2 lakh each from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund, and that the injured would get Rs. 50,000 each.
Taking suo motu cognizance, Kerala High Court judge Justice Devan Ramachandran said, “The pain of the families…requires an urgent intervention and no more time can be lost.” He said that if the “element of recklessness had been addressed earlier” then the accident could have been averted. If this is allowed to go unseen, the court said, “the roads of Kerala will become killing fields.”
State Education Minister V Sivankutty said schools should avoid going on tours during nighttime, and schools should hire vehicles from tour operators registered with Tourism Department.
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