Dropouts

For the 23 ill-fated students — all from Nani Daman — Thursday was just any other day. School got over by 1.20 pm and the hungry kids rushed out of classrooms and got into the rickshaws, waiting outside the campus, to ferry them to their homes.

As the Daman-Ganga bridge connected Moti Daman with Nani Daman, kids from Nani Daman used to take this route home. The bridge is barely a kilometre from the school.

‘‘After school, we were busy rehearsing for Teacher’s Day. There were around 300 students participating in the rehearsals. Some 20 minutes later, I received a message that the bridge has collapsed and our kids might be dead,’’ says principal Sister Josephine Carvalho.

Tears rolling down her cheeks, Sr Carvalho says: ‘‘It was indeed a black Thursday. We never expected that 23 innocent lives will be snatched away. We saw them leaving the school compound, but we will never see them return.’’

While the school authorities are grappling with the shock of Thursday’s tragedy, they are eagerly waiting for information about their mathematics teacher Bharat Patel, who has gone missing.

Patel’s colleague Suzanne D’Souza says: ‘‘We are quite worried about him. He is a nice man. The administration has no information about him.’’

Talking about the deceased students, Sr Carvalho says: ‘‘ Except for six-year-old Mayank Prajapati and nine-year-old Hardika Chaunkar, the rest were between 10 to 16 years of age. Sumaiya Fadra, Pooja Pathak, Hemali Prajapati and Hardika Chaunkar were among the brilliant students in the primary section.’’

Angry with the lackadaisical attitude of the Daman administration, Sr Carvalho says: ‘‘Compensation can never bring back the kids. This is total negligence on part of the Daman administration. They have overlooked the maintenance of the dilapidated bridge. They are responsible for the children’s death.’’