M A I N   N E W S

Lucky duo woke up late, missed school van
Arun Sharma
Tribune News Service

Pasyala, Sabga (Ambala), January 2
Uday and Drishti, students of Arjun Public School, situated 3 km from Pasyala village, were lucky to have missed the school van today. As they got late in getting ready for the van, their father decided to drop them on his motorcycle.

Their cousin — four-year-old Kunal, a student of nursery class — was not that lucky. The school van met with an accident this morning.

A majority of the schoolchildren killed in the mishap belonged to Pasyala and Sabga villages.

Many of the families here have lost more than one of their wards while children of many others are struggling for life in different hospitals of Ambala and Chandigarh.

The very first house in Pasyala village has lost four-year-old Kunal, a student of nursery class. In the next street, farmer Raj Kumar sat on a mat outside his house mourning the death of his two sons Ashish and Shivam - both students of Class I at Arjun Public School situated 3 km from the village.

A few yards away, Ramesh and his relatives were wailing over the death of their only child Vishal.

The ambulances, throughout the day, had been frequenting the two villages ferrying the bodies of children. While both villages had at least 11 children each in the ill-fated cab, the remaining 10 children belonged to Dinar Pur, Langar Chhani and Narayangarh Majra villages.

The situation in the adjoining village of Sabga was no different where five deaths were reported, including three from a joint family.

A large number of villagers thronged the house of brothers Parmod and Vinod. The duo lost all of their three sons Rahul, Rishabh and Lavish. “We have lost everything we had,” this was all a choke Vinod could say.

In their neighbourhood, Pawan, father of Ashutosh, a 14-year-old boy, was finding it difficult to believe that his only son had died in hospital.

Ashutosh sisters Isha and Divya, injured seriously, had been referred to Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh.