Aban Ashraf, a student of Class III, will not be able to write his annual school exam owing to a critical injury and trauma after an app cab hit the scooter he was travelling on and ran over his right hand on Tuesday afternoon.
Aban is not alone. Children have had a horrid time on Calcutta’s roads in the past few weeks.
At least a dozen crashes have been reported in the city during this period where children fell victim either to rash driving by others or they were failed by their guardians who did not follow traffic rules.
Aban’s father, Mohammad Ashraf, told The Telegraph that his son was standing on the footboard of the scooter with a helmet on when the cab hit them from the rear. “I fell on the left and Aban on the right. The cab’s front left wheel ran over my son’s right hand,” he said.
Ashraf no longer uses his scooter when travelling with his family. He books a cab because he is scared for Aban and his six-month-old daughter.
Nirvaan Banik, 6, who has overcome losing a finger in a road crash
Sourced by The TelegraphA few days ago, 18-month-old Sloke Jaiswara, who was in the lap of his mother riding pillion on a scooter, fell on the road after the two-wheeler was hit by a trailer. The child came under the wheels of the trailer. Sloke’s father Sanjay Jaiswara had said his son’s head was too small for helmets but also lamented that they could never imagine “something like this” could ever happen.
A few weeks ago, a Class VII student who was riding pillion on her mother’s scooter, died after she fell off the two-wheeler when its handle got snagged in the truck’s rear fender and was crushed under the giant vehicle on VIP Road.
Last month, four-year-old Shreya Mondal was critically injured by a bus at AJC Bose Road’s intersection with Cathedral Road while she was trying to cross over without realising that the signal was green. Her father was with her.
Last August, Class II student Souranil Sarkar came under the wheels of a truck on his way to school in Behala as he was trying to cross the road with his father. They were away from the zebra crossing and too close to a giant truck that started moving as the traffic light turned green.
Almost all the mishaps leave room for introspection — for traffic police and ordinary commuters.
A police officer in south Calcutta who had witnessed a child being killed in a crash said that sometimes just accompanying the child to school or tuition was not enough. “The road rules have to be taught to the child. A child always follows his/her parents. If you wear a helmet, they too will be keen on wearing helmets. If you cross the road only at zebra crossings, they will also learn to do the right thing. If you stop your car when the traffic signal is red, chances are your child will also adapt to this quality and will drive responsibly in the future,” said the officer.
In the crash he saw, the father was crossing the road dangerously, he said.
Last August, a Class III student living in a home for the underprivileged wriggled out of the grasp of a caretaker and ran into the main road while crossing it on his way to school and was hit by a taxi. The police then said that the caretaker should have been “more alert”.
The mother of Nirvaan Banik, the child whose right little finger was partially ripped off by the sudden opening of the left door of a pickup van in 2022 when he was four, spoke to this newspaper about the importance of “remaining alert and teaching children to follow the rules”.
“My kid’s hand was on the autorickshaw’s handrail when suddenly the helper of the pickup van that stationed itself next to our autorickshaw flung open the left door,” Nirvaan’s mother Poulami said on Wednesday.
She added that the incident changed their lives forever.
“He has devised ways to do work without his little finger. But the trauma whenever he sees me or his younger brother’s hand on the the car window, even for a few seconds, is still there. We have stopped travelling in autorickshaws,” she said.
