Poem cut short, cycle ride that wasn’t to be: 12 children die in Etah on way to school

WATCH VIDEO |  Over 20 Schoolchildren Dead In Bus-Truck Collision In Uttar Pradesh’s Etah District

What was left on the road were pieces of the truck and the bus. And shoes, ID cards, torn bags and books, caps and blood-soaked water bottles.

“Chalo, chalo, kinare ho jao. Samaan ko haath mat lagana (Go on, move to the side. Don’t touch those things),” said a constable, warning those who had gathered there.

Villagers gather by the bodies of sisters Radhika, 14, and Shalini, 12, who were killed in an accident, in Ramnagar village, near Etah, India, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017. (Source: AP Photo)

The final twist came soon, when it dawned that the children shouldn’t have been on the bus on Thursday. The school management had ignored a district administration directive to not hold classes from KG to Class 8 due to the severe cold wave in the region. Those killed in the bus were between the ages of six and 14, most of them studying in KG to Class 8.

Within hours, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had asked officials to cancel the recognition granted to the Aliganj school, JS Vidya Niketan, and ordered an inquiry. And police had registered cases against the school owners, brothers Sujit Kumar and Ajit Kumar, principal Govind Srivastava and the truck driver, identified as Yogendra Singh, who is undergoing treatment at Saifai Medical College.

But for those left behind by Kishan, Radhika, Shalini, Sunny and the others, all that was of little comfort.

People looking at the mangled remains of vehicles after a school bus collided with a lorry amid dense fog on Aliganj-Paliyali road in Etah district on Thursday. (Source: PTI Photo)

At the home of the sisters in Ramnagar village, their elder brother Abhishek was struggling to speak. His mother had asked him to escort his sisters to school that day — Shalini (13) was in Class 9 and Radhika (15) in Class 10. Abhishek had refused.

”The bus driver used to drive very rashly. He took away my sisters,” said Abhishek.

In Kalia village, 16-year-old Shivani has not been able to get up from bed ever since she heard of Sunny’s death. “We had sent Sunny to school to make his life better. Who knew everything would be destroyed? Shivani used to follow him every time he stepped out of home. She is a big responsibility on us now. We will get her married soon,” said Pyarelal, her 89-year-old grandfather.

”Let me at least take my child’s books,” said Ram Sewak from Tikaitpura village, father of five-year-old Vikas, who died inside the bus. “I couldn’t see my son’s body, his small face was smashed between the seats and walls of the vehicle… I didn’t want to send him to school today, his mother insisted that he went,” he said.

Even those injured had stories to tell. It was 10-year-old Prerna’s birthday. Dressed in a new, green salwar suit, she had bought toffees for her classmates.

Then there was eight-year-old Alok, a KG student. “My classmate Kishan was reciting a poem to me when it happened,” he said.

And what was that poem?

”Thank you, God, for the world so sweet; thank you, God, for the food we eat; thank you, God, for the birds that sing; thank you, God, for everything.”