Terrifying school bus ride in Surat: How alert students stopped vehicle and saved 50 lives

SURAT: Fifty students of a private school in the posh Althan area of the city had a fortunate escape after they caught the bus driver drunk and forced him to stop the vehicle before anything untoward happened.
An alert Class 10 student forced the driver to stop and pulled out the key noticing that the vehicle was going zigzag on the road due to his drunken condition.

The driver, Suresh Singh Rajput (56), started from the Maheshwari Vidhyapeeth at 11am to drop the students home. The bus had travelled for seven km between Althan and Magdalla and the driver escaped the accident at least four times. The rash driving also left two students injured while others had their hearts in their mouth and started screaming. The students in the bus were from Class 1 to Class 12.

The incident was a stark reminder of the Haryana bus tragedy where six students lost their lives and 20 injured when the drunk schoolbus driver crashed into a tree on April 11.
The school and bus contractors claim they ensure that rash and negligent drivers are not given the vehicles.
Police arrest driver, seize school bus
Mahendra Jhawar, president of Maheshwari Vidhyapeeth, told TOI, "This is an unfortunate incident. We have given notice to the contractor who runs the buses for our school. We have called students and parents meeting on Tuesday to know what exactly has happened. We assure the parents such incidents will not be repeated. We are dealing with the situation with an iron hand."

Maheshwari Vidhyapeeth has 2,000 students of whom at least 1,300 use school buses or vans as transport.
Talking to TOI, bus contractor Vikram Oswal claimed, "We conduct regular breath analyser tests of drivers before they board the bus. However, on Monday as the school timing was changed to 11am due to heat, we had to rush the buses and couldn't conduct the test."
"We will now install cameras inside buses to avoid such incidents," said Oswal. Althan police inspector N K Damor said: "We have booked the driver and seized the bus and booked him under sections of the Motor Vehicle Act."