9 school children dead after van falls into gorge in Tehri

An accident involving an untrained driver killed nine school children in Pratapnagar area of Tehri district. Nine other children have been injured in the accident. He was going to drop the children off at school in a Maxx vehicle. The condition of five of the injured is stated to be critical. These have been airlifted to AIIMS in Rishikesh. It was told that the driver had started driving just five days earlier. He did not know how to drive properly, but the adventurous driver still drove the vehicle with the children. The car belonged to his father, he was sitting on the back seat. Father-son duo escaped after the incident, the son was arrested late in the evening. A case of unlawful murder has been registered against the father-son in the Vishalgaon police station. At the same time, Transport Minister Yashpal Arya suspended ARTO Nikhilesh Ojha in charge of Tehri. Anand Jaiswal has been sent to Tehri in his place.

The accident happened at around seven in the morning. Children from Kangsali area of ​​Pratapnagar study at Angel International School in Madannegi. As usual, they left for school at about six thirty in the morning. After walking a short distance, their school van fell into a 200 meter deep gorge. When the incident was detected, there was chaos in the entire area. Anyone who heard the screams ran towards the scene. The villagers were involved in rescue and relief work before the rescue team arrived. Nine children died on the spot of the accident, while nine others were injured. Police, disaster management and SDRF teams took out the bodies and injured from the ditch with the help of nearby people. There were 20 children aged between three and 13 years in the vehicle. They are all from Kangsali village. The father and son jumped out when the balance of the car deteriorated.

Rescue faced problems due to bad weather. The injured were rushed to the district hospital somehow. Meanwhile, the administration demanded a helicopter to airlift the seriously injured children. After some time, five seriously injured children were airlifted from the Chamba police line to the Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Rishikesh. Their condition remains critical. Family of some of the children took them from the accident site itself. For the treatment of a child, the family moved to Srinagar. It was told that Premdutt was the driver of the Maxx vehicle, but since August 1, his son Laxman was driving the vehicle. The father himself was sitting on the back seat. The son did not even have a license to drive a commercial vehicle on the mountainous route.