Killer tanker was speeding at 100kmph

TRAGIC Collision kills sevenyearold, injures 17; cops say tanker had been fined nine times in past and school van was prosecuted for two traffic violations

NEW DELHI: A seven-year-old girl was killed and 17 other students from two north Delhi schools were injured on Thursday morning when their overloaded school van was hit by a speeding milk tanker near the Kanhaiya Nagar Metro station, the police said.

The 38-year-old tanker driver, Sanjeev, had six-and-a-half times the permissible alcohol content in his blood at the time of the accident, a police officer said. “Sanjeev tried to escape from the spot by jumping off the tanker, but was caught by a police team nearby,” the officer said. Investigation revealed that though the tanker has been fined at least nine times in the past while the school van was prosecuted for two traffic violations.

Police however said the drivers were not the ones involved in Thursday’s accident.

According to Aslam Khan, deputy commissioner of police (northwest), three students are critical and several others are in a serious state. “The children with serious injuries are undergoing treatment at Lok Nayak Hospital, Sushruta Trauma Centre and AIIMS,” said the DCP.

On Thursday, the privatelyhired school van had picked up 14 girls and four boys, all aged between seven and 14, from their homes in JJ Colony, a slum cluster in Keshavpuram.

Six of them are from Keshavpuram’s Central School and the others from Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya.

According to eyewitnesses, the accident happened at 6.45am, when the school van was moving on to the opposite carriageway of the Maharaja Nahar Singh Marg at a traffic junction near the Metro station.

“The van was still taking the U-turn when the milk tanker rammed it on the left side. I am sure the tanker was being driven at a speed of over 100 km/hr. The roads were clear at that hour and the traffic signal was not functioning,” said Deepanshu Gupta, a college student who had just seen off his younger school-going brother.

The impact was such that the van rolled over thrice before landing on its side, almost 30 metres away. “The hit caused the van’s doors to open immediately. Some children fell on the road after being flung away from the van. Others fell on top of each other inside the vehicle. All of them were badly injured and some were lying motionless,” said Narain Saini, who witnessed the accident from his terrace.

The tanker driver stopped his truck metres away from the accident spot and tried to run away, even as the van driver helped the injured children despite his own injuries to head and limbs, eyewitnesses told police. Locals and some policemen stationed nearby rescued the children trapped in the van before rushing them to various hospitals.

“The tanker driver was heavily drunk and was speeding. We have arrested him and booked him for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The 20-year-old van driver, Bharat, too has been booked for his role in the accident, but he is hospitalised with injuries,” said DCP Khan.

“The tanker driver has claimed that his driving licence was in his vehicle. We are yet to recover it,” said the DCP. She denied reports that the either of the drivers had earphones on.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has directed the chief secretary to get a magisterial inquiry conducted and submit the report within three days. Ashok Vihar