Friday, Jan 26, 2007

Dubai: When bus number one dropped Rafay Ali near his home on an unlit road at 7pm last week, the driver told him to cross while he watched out for him. Eight-year-old Rafay never made it.

He was hit by a car, suffered three fractures, and one week later he is still in bed unable to move and sometimes crying in pain. The left side of his body is almost entirely wrapped in bandages and he will have to stay home from school for 30 days.

Rafay's parents are angry. They say the school had repeatedly refused their requests to have him dropped at the door of his Ajman home. And that night there was not even a supervisor on the bus to escort children across roads.

"When I met the principal at the hospital I asked him if he remembered my face from when I pleaded with him to drop my son home and he refused. I'm not going to let go of this," said Shamim, Rafay's mother.

Rafay attends afternoon classes at the New India Model School (NIMS) in Sharjah.

According to Jabbar Ali, the principal of NIMS, it is difficult to drop pupils to their doorstep because of "time constraints."

"When parents admit their children to the school we tell them there are some areas the buses will not go to. If they insist, we accept taking their children on the condition that they will not be dropped all the way," he said.

With 2,800 students attending in two shifts, the school has 17 buses and 17 supervisors, said Ali.

"All buses must have supervisors who are responsible for the children's safety, and must assist every child in crossing the street," he said, adding that the relevant supervisor was "held up" the day Rafay was injured. In such cases, he said, the supervisor's responsibilities fell upon the driver.

Another pupil at NIMS told Gulf News that supervisors were only present on the drive to the school, but not back, "and they only assist some of the children in crossing the street," she said.

Rafay's uncle, Imtiaz, said his six-year-old son was dropped at a junction by another NIMS bus, and made to walk "six minutes" before reaching home. The NIMS principal insisted that the school was not responsible for Rafay's injuries.

Arfan, who drives the NIMS bus, told Gulf News that Rafay ran across the street that evening before he could catch up with him, and before he knew it, a "speeding car" had hit him. A sergeant at Ajman's Al Madina Police Station told Gulf News that Arfan was being held responsible for Rafay's accident due to "negligence."

"The driver admitted it was his responsibility to assist the child in crossing the street, which he failed to do," he said, adding the driver of the car that hit Rafay was going at "around 60 kilometres per hour, which is the speed limit on that road."

Gulf News 2007. All rights reserved.