School bus mishap claims 1 more

Eleven-year-old Aniket Ponkshe, a student of the Panvel-based Changu Kana Thakur School died at National Burns Centre in Airoli on Saturday at 2pm. Ponkshe, a resident of Panvel, was among the 20 students who suffered burn injuries when their school bus  caught fire on August 20. Among the 38 students present in the bus, 20 were injured. Last Saturday, Ronit Gore (13), an eighth standard student succumbed to injuries. “Ponkshe suffered 50 per cent burns and had contracted infection. His lungs were damaged due to smoke inhalation. For the past two days, he was on the ventilator,” said Dr Ganesh Pawar from the Burns Centre.

Five more students are still in the NBC, of which the condition of three — Ankita Kurangale, Ajinkya Dangre and Neeraj Kurangale — is said to be stable while two others — Neetu Thakur and Ankit Mohokar are critical, having suffered more than 50 per cent burns.

On August 20, the school bus  caught fire near Amardham Crematorium in Panvel. The cause of the fire is not yet clear. Panvel police are awaiting forensic reports. The Pen RTO officials’ report stated that the reason couldn’t be ascertained as the entire bus was charred.

The driver-cum-owner of the bus, Vishwanath Maruti Phadtare (24) and cleaner Anil Bachule Yadhav (20), who were arrested on the day of the incident, have been remanded to magisterial custody till September 9.

Phadtare had claimed that he had the necessary permits from the RTO, to ferry students in the bus but investigations revealed that he did not.