Several students were injured. They were rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where doctors pronounced two of them dead on arrival. Those who died were Nida Afzal, aged 20, and Rabia Mehwish, aged 18, sources at the hospital said.
Nida and Rabia were students of APWA Government College.
Academic activities will remain suspended on Wednesday at APWA Government College to mourn the death of the two students. Quran Khwani will also be held at the college for the deceased students.
The injured were Naheed Rahman, Sehr Afshan, Madiha, Sobia Naz, Durdana, Beenish, Farida Muzammil, Areesha and Shahida.
A motorcyclist, Rashid, who was also hit by the bus, was first rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and later to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where he died.
The driver fled the scene leaving behind the bus.
Shahida, daughter of a journalist, Ghulam Mohiuddin, was seriously injured. She was later shifted to a private hospital. Naheed Rahman, Beenish Habib and Durdana Idrees are in the Intensive Care Unit at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.
Witnesses said a passenger bus of route 5-C (No JA-5983) was trying to overtake a Hyderabad-bound bus when descending a ramp on the Liaquat flyover. The 5-C bus went out of the driver’s control due to speeding and hit a group of girl students standing at the roadside.
A number of people gathered at the place of the accident and began shifting the injured to hospital in private vehicles and Edhi ambulances. Police and rangers also reached there to maintain law and order.
A large number of girl students, who were waiting for transport or coming out of APWA college, rushed to rescue their fellow students who were crying in pain. Some of the girl students, who were helping the injured, fainted after seeing the tragic scene.
Enraged people tried to set the bus on fire, but police and rangers controlled the situation and had it shifted to the area police station.
A senior police officer said the bus driver, who belonged to a major group of transporters - the Karachi Transport Ittehad - could not be arrested.
“The two buses were running at a very fast speed and we thought that they might not stop. Several girl students ran for their lives and some of us could not move and were hit by the bus,” a girl student said in a choked voice at the hospital.
A physiotherapist, Asif, who was waiting for bus, and saw the accident, told this reporter at the hospital that a speeding 5-C bus was trying to overtake a Hyderabad-bound bus and the 5-C bus while descending the flyover hit those at the bus stop. “A motorcyclist was ahead of the 5-C bus. The bus hit the motorcyclist before striking the girl students near a filling station at Karimabad,” he added.
He said the Hyderabad-bound bus and the 5-C bus stopped with a screech, but by then several girl students had been hit by the 5-C bus and the atmosphere was filled with their cries.
Emotional scenes were witnessed at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where the dead and injured were brought. Wailing and weeping parents and relations of the dead and injured students made the atmosphere mournful.
Mother of Nida Afzal, who died in the accident, said: “It was the first day of my daughter at the college.” The grief-stricken mother was crying constantly and could not speak further. Mohammed Afzal, Nida’s father, resident of Block-15 in Federal B-Area, said he had one son and one daughter (Nida). She was a student of BA Final, Afzal, a KESC employee, said.
Abdul Hai Siddiqui, grandfather of deceased Rabia Mehwish, who was standing outside the mortuary to receive the body, said Rabia was the only child of her parents, and she was a student of BSc Part-I. She was resident of Block-9 in Federal B-Area, and it was her first day at the college. Her father, Mohammed Rafi Khan, is retired headmaster of a government school.
Relations of the girl students thronged the emergency ward at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. They were expressing their anger at the apathy of the administration and police for their failure to curb reckless driving that daily claimed several lives in the city.
They criticized the Karachi police authorities, city and provincial governments for their utter failure to curb the menace of reckless driving. Most buses plied the roads without valid route permit, and no action was taken against them which emboldened them to treat rules and regulations with contempt, they said.
“Transporters’ organizations always demand compensation for their vehicles burned in violence, and they also oppose the traffic police’s action against reckless driving, but leaders of the transporter’ organizations have never handed over the drivers responsible for fatal or other accidents to police,” people gathered at the ASH said.
On Jan 10, a schoolgirl died and her two school fellows were injured in a road accident in Nazimabad when a speeding bus of route 19-D (JT-0975) knocked them down.
Following the accident, enraged youths set a bus of route 20 (JA-8702) on fire on the same road. The bus was coming from Baldia Town carrying a marriage party. The three girls were walking across the main road on their way home in Nazimabad No 1 from their school in Nazimabad No 3 when the accident took place.
On May 11, 2001, six girl students died and 14 others were injured when a truck collided head on with a van carrying girl students on National Highway near Steel Town.
The college van was returning to Steel Town carrying 20 people, including girl students and a teacher, from a college, an examination centre, in Shah Faisal Colony when it met with the accident.