SUV crushes kid to death at school

A seven-year-old schoolboy was crushed to death by an SUV allegedly driven by a private engineering college student, at Gandhi Nagar in Tiruvallur here on Wednesday.

Police said Vinodkumar,  a Class II student, was sitting on the classroom verandah, which was three feet above the ground, at a Panchayat Union Middle School on Rajayogi Street in Gandhi Nagar. Around 8.30 am, a Bolero rammed into the verandah, crushing the boy who was waiting for 9’o clock bell to go off so that he could enter the classroom. Shocked, other children who witnessed the mishap alerted the teachers.

Vinodkumar’s sisters —Kirthiga (10), a class V student, and Ezhilarasi (9), a class IV student — studying in the same school, came running to the verandah and broke down on finding their younger brother in a pool of blood. The boy was rushed to the Stanley Medical College Hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.

His father Vadivelu, a casual labourer, lodged a police complaint. Sholavaram Police Inspector S Abdul Khadar rushed to the spot, while an angry mob damaged the ill-fated vehicle. The vehicle, abandoned by its seven occupants, including the driver, was seized by the police.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the seven occupants were students of a private engineering college, who had planned a tour.

The Inspector told Express that it was suspected that the car could have been driven by an inexperienced person.

“With the help of the registration number, we traced the owner, who is a businessman living in a village near Periyapalayam. He told us that his son Venkatesh took the car on Wednesday. Venkatesh is absconding since the accident,” he added.