Mumbai BEST bus accident kills 4 and injures several others near Bhandup station | Key points

Death toll rose to four as Mumbai’s civic-run transport undertaking Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) bus mowed over passengers while reversing outside Bhandup suburban railway station at around 10.03 pm on Monday.

Apart from the four casualties, nine others are severely injured.

Senior police inspector Balasaheb Pawar said that the police team soon reached the spot and rushed the injured to the hospital. Fire brigade, BEST and ambulances were also activated to reach the site.

Here are the key points of the accident:-

• The 52-year-old driver, Santosh Ramesh Sawant has been taken into police custody, police personnel from the deputy commissionerate of police told Hindustan Times.
• The Wetlease Bus olecra used to run on route number A 606 and was attached to Vikhroli depot. BEST operates a large fleet of buses, covering the city and its neighbouring urban areas.
  Despite operational constraints like inadequate turning radius, BEST, facing shortage of buses, introduced Olectra-made midi buses on routes from Bhandup (West) station, PTI reported quoting an official.
• A BEST official told Hindustan Times that while Sawant was driving the bus at the time of the accident, conductor Bhagwan Bhau Ghare was also aboard the vehicle.
• Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a financial assistance of ₹5 lakh each to the families of the casualties of the accident.

Fadnavis took to his X handle to extend tributes to the ones who lost their lives and termed the incident as ‘extremely unfortunate’.

• Mumbai Congress president and Lok Sabha MP Varsha Gaikwad sought an inquiry into the accident. “BEST, once a world-class public transport system, has been deliberately weakened. The disastrous wet-leasing model, refusal to restore a fully public-run BEST, and this government’s obsession of handing over everything to its contractors friends have pushed Mumbai into danger,” Gaikwad wrote on her official X handle.

(With inputs from HT correspondents and PTI)