Mumbai bus crash: BEST has its worst nightmare in years

MUMBAI: Driver Sanjay More's lawyer Samadhan Sulane told the court on Tuesday that the spark from the bus may have caused a short circuit and that his client could not be held responsible for its malfunctioning, which led to several deaths.

"Police have taken the bus into custody, More's blood samples have been taken, there is nothing to recover from him and hence he should be sent to judicial custody," he said. However, in view of the gravity of the incident, magistrate SM Gurgond remanded More to police custody till Dec 21.

More has been booked for attempt to commit culpable homicide and voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt under provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. RTO experts have inspected the bus and examined its functioning by syncing it with the system software.

Refuting the allegation that the driver lacked training to handle an automatic vehicle, BEST spokesperson Sudas Samant said he was given three days training on an electric bus with automatic transmission in the last week of November. "He had also been on duty for ten days, and there should be no complaint from him that he was not trained before being assigned the bus," he said.

A bus driver, on condition of anonymity, said many drivers like him had received training for seven days at the Dindoshi centre of BEST, where a lot of time was spent on studying rules and routes and in live demos on how to drive buses. "We had non-electric buses then. I have no idea if BEST has introduced an electric auto transmission bus now," he said. He added that "three days" of training on automatic transmission to run an electric AC bus like the one that crashed on Monday was "inadequate."

BEST Workers Union leader Shashank Rao had a similar view. "There is a need for seven days to three months training for drivers on new buses before we deploy them on streets. It will ensure they are confident about driving on congested roads and also ensure passenger safety," he said. A motor training expert said often drivers get confused between automatic and manual driving and end up in accidents. Meanwhile, a police team has started collecting CCTV footage, identifying witnesses, recording statements of injured and collecting post-mortem reports to make a case against More.



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