LAHORE: A school bus carrying students of a private school plunged into Rohi drain at Suay Asal Kahna on Friday, leaving four children dead and six injured.

The bus driver and the conductor managed to escape from the spot.

The bus was taking children of the Shaheen Public School to their homes after school timings.

Kahna police investigation showed that the bus was carrying children of different villages when the driver apparently lost control and it veered off the road before falling into the drain.

Soon after the incident, witnesses alerted Rescue 1122 and police, starting initial efforts to rescue the trapped children.

The victims were transported to Lahore General Hospital (LGH) and Central Park Hospital where Ihsan, Anees and Hashim succumbed to their wounds while seven others remained under treatment. Later, one of the critically injured, identified as Shanza, also breathed her last.

According to a Rescue 1122 spokesman, they rescued four kids and shifted them to LGH. There was no water in the drain at the time of incident, he said.

Police took school principal Khalid Jameel into custody, registered a case against the absconding driver and conductor and started investigation.

DIG (Operations) Dr Haider Ashraf said the exact cause of the accident would be determined in the light of investigation, witnesses’ accounts and evidence collected from the scene besides the arrest of prime suspects.

He said forensic experts, with the help of the departments concerned, would also examine the wreckage of the bus.

Witnesses said emotional scenes were seen at the two hospitals and villages the victims belonged to. The victims’ families blamed the negligence of bus driver that caused the killing of children.

Police handed over the bodies to bereaved families without autopsy and began raids to arrest the runaway suspects.

In another incident, a 38-year-old man was killed while two others suffered injuries after a car hit them at a bus stop at Shahdara Mor.

Police said the car driver had lost control over the vehicle and it hit some passengers awaiting public transport on the roadside. The three injured were taken to Mayo Hospital where an unidentified person died.

The injured were identified as Zeeshan and Irfan.

Police shifted the body for autopsy, registered a case against the unidentified car driver and began investigation.

Published in Dawn, November 29th , 2014