Vibgyor High School Bus Takes Alone Girl Student 15 km Away From Home, Parents Panic, Girl Traumatised

Pune, October 11, 2019: An 11 year old girl student of Vibgyor High NIBM Road was traumatized after the bus driver instead of dropping her at home bus stop, took her 15 km away with only her and attendant in the bus on Monday. When her panicked parents contacted the school, they were not able to locate the bus.

Finally her parents picked her from the bus two hours later in Kharadi. Meanwhile the school officials said that due to some constraint the bus driver could not drop her on time. The school is taking remedial measures.

The family had shifted to India from USA two years back and after this incident contemplating of going back to USA.

Read the complaint of the girl’s father to the school management:

To:

Principal,

Vibgyor High School NIBM

NIBM, Pune

Dear Principal,

I am sure you are aware of the incident that took place on Monday, October 7, 2019 regarding a huge lapse regarding the bus that left the school with our daughter, DID NOT drop her home and may not have returned home! It is totally unacceptable and I would like to know the action you will be taking for the lapse on the driver, maid, transportation coordinator and finally the school’s part. Apologies will not help as many apologies have been given in earlier similar not so grave situations.

Here are the details as shared with you on the phone, with Mr. Mahrooh, Mr. Nagesh in person on Oct 7th.

Our daughter was given a diary note by the teacher to board the bus #4 at 2:30 pm and the driver’s name was Gurudas and his number was shared as 9767924876.

The actual driver of the bus #4 was changed from Gurudas to Altaf. No one knows why this was changed and no parent was notified for the reason for the change.

After our daughter boarded the bus #4 from the school, she was told by the unofficial driver along the way that she should change the bus and go in another bus driven by driver Yogesh (Shocking!!)*. No one had mentioned this to her and there was no official note for her to do so.

The driver of bus #4 had a printed paper with him with each child’s name, address and phone number of the parent to be dropped of. Our daughter’s name was in the paper he had for the drop. The driver DID NOT BRING THE BUS TO THE SOCIETY GATE TO DROP HER DESPITE BEING .5 KM AWAY FROM WHERE HE DROPPED A TEACHER.

Given that this was not a regular bus our daughter takes due to the exam schedule change, she thought may be it is a different route to reach home. When the bus came near Magarpatta, our daughter realized and told the maid that why they did not take to her drop as she had to go to Undri (15 min from the school). To this, the maid and driver tell her that she had to go to another bus and she should have gotten off at some stop (despite her drop was with bus #4). Now, she does not know where they are taking her and when she will reach home.

It was about 3:25 pm when my wife started getting worried about why our daughter was not home. She called the school and talked to the staff.

To my wife’s surprise, it was told that her stop was missed and now the bus has gone to drop other kids.

Fanatic calls started happening from our side to find out where exactly is the bus and where have they taken our daughter.

The school was not able to tell us after many calls where exactly is the bus and we were given a number of the bus maid to find out. They could not talk or reach the driver.

My wife kept calling the maid who finally managed to pick up the phone and asked her where is our daughter and where is the bus. She was shocked to find out that bus was taken to Kharadi (15 km away from her original drop).

At this point, our daughter was alone in the bus with the maid and the driver who did not care to ensure the bus went to her drop and also did not care to turn the bus around when they found out they have not dropped her despite her drop should have been the 1st one according to bus coordinator.

We are freaking out at this point not knowing what is going on and how she will be safe in the bus along with a driver and maid who have not cared.

Our daughter was freaking out and was also scared as she was not sure where she was with unknown driver who had told her to get off at some point to go in another unknown bus and when she will reach home

We finally managed to talk to the driver and told him to park the bus where he was and not move until we come.

After 45 min. we reached the spot where the bus was parked and took our daughter in our car. (this was 4:30 pm)

When we met our daughter, she was petrified and in the trauma at this point and was asking us to move back to the US and not stay in India. My wife was consoling and comforting her while I talked with the driver Altaf to get the truth out about what was happening.

When we asked the driver Altaf (Who was not supposed to be the driver of Bus #4) what happened and why she was not dropped at her spot ( and BTW…I have a video recording of him confirming all below details that have been shared)

he said he told our daughter to go to another bus as that bus goes to her house. I asked him if he was told about this by the school. To our shock, he said, no he was not told to send our daughter to another bus but they do this often and he thought Yogesh takes bus from that route so she can go with him. Really ????? He had a printed paper in his hand with our daughter’s name to be dropped off.

I also asked the maid why she did not say anything to the driver. To yet another shock, she said that your daughter does not come to this bus so we don’t know. She said that we called Nagesh (transportation coordinator) and notified him. According to the maid and driver, when they told Nagesh after our daughter told them why the bus did not go to her spot; Nagesh told them to continue to Kharadi drop first and then the turn the bus.

Nagesh did not notify us about this. But there were more lies behind this as well.

At this point, my wife took our daughter home (near 5 pm. Our daughter had left the house at 6:40 am).

I went to school. I reached at 5:15 and met Mr Mahroof, admin head and Mr. Nagesh, transportation coordinator. I have a video recording of my conversation with them and have shared with school staff.)

When asked what time Mr. Nagesh talked to the driver, he did not know. When asked him to call the driver, he could not even find the number of the driver in his phone saying driver uses 2 SIM cards and he only has one phone number of him that he is not reachable. Really?
 
After about 15 minutes, even Mr Mahroof got frustrated with him that he could not find what time he talked to the driver. 

To my shock, Nagesh confirmed on camera in front of Mr. Mahroof that he DID NOT talk to the driver and lied to us saying he talked to him.

He had NO ANSWER to why the driver was changed from Gurudas (written in the diary) to Altaf and no one was notified of this change. He had NO ANSWER to who was monitoring CCTV and GPS in the bus when the bus did not take our daughter to her stop in the 1st place.

*With the GPS and CCTV, why was bus coordinator and admin head not able to tell us where the bus was with our daughter and that had to be confirmed by talking to the maid, the maid? *

Our daughter has been under shock and trauma since this episode and is also impacting her physically and mentally. This was a serious lapse that put the safety and life of our daughter in jeopardy.

I am not expecting an apology from you or any staff of the Vibgyor School or even the head office. I want to know what actions are being taken on the admin head, bus coordinator, driver  and the maid. lease give specifics and not typical answers like we will take utmost care . I want to know HOW are you going to ensure that this does not happen again in the future with any child.”