Kurla BEST bus crash: Eyewitnesses recount what they saw

The residents and shopkeepers of the street that witnessed one of the city’s deadliest accidents last week are angry and frustrated at the municipal corporation’s apathy. But, they are also counting their blessings that they survived to tell the tale

Curving bus stands, drawn with almost protractor precision, ending a few metres before platform 1, lend Kurla station bus depot a quirky personality. They are uncharacteristically desolate this Thursday evening. Buses are not yet terminating their route at the arced bus stands; their original routes are reinstated only on Friday afternoon.  This writer and photojournalist Sayyed Sameer Abidi, a Kurla-resident, are retracing bus no. 332’s path of mayhem on Monday, as its brakes apparently failed and it lost control. As of this report going to print, seven people had died and 49 were injured as the electric bus hurtled and zigzaged for more than half a kilometre.

It was past 9.44 pm. Surekha Rajbhog, was at her small grocery-cum-snack shop, one of the first on SG Barve Marg. She saw 332 veer menacingly. “I was handing over change to a customer, when the bus tapped a parked rickshaw,” says Rajbhog. “People yelled at the driver to slow down, but in a blink, the bus was gone. He didn’t hit anyone here… that came much ahead…”

A hush settles over the street.

Pic/iStock

“Nothing happened here,” says the man behind the counter of the shop selling plastic stools, and bathware, right before Aparna Hospital.  I had shut shop hours before says the pan-chewing leather shoe-seller. At the adjoining vada-pao shop, two 20-somethings look up from the phone screen to tell us that their father was here when the bus ran amok; not them. Everyone freezes slightly when Abedi reaches for his camera; he tucks it back into the bag against his chest. Media has camped here since Monday night; and we get the impression that residents are wary, or weary, of repeating what they saw.

Finally, a bystander pityingly throws us a bone: “Go to the matka shop; he first hit someone outside the matka shop.”

“Yeah, I was here,” says Hareshbhai Jetwa, discerning eyes peering over spectacles. His house is in the next lane. “See my scooty? The first man he hit, an old man, landed on it. We put him in a rickshaw [to rush him to the hospital] but he didn’t make it. My brother had been standing on the spot only a few moments before. I have CCTV footage; you want to see?” Jetwa, in his late 40s, whips out his phone. CCTV footage shows the bus whizzing past his store, smashing his scooter. The timestamp shows 21:44:20. He estimates the bus was hurtling at least at 60kmph. “He wasn’t just overspeeding; he was swerving left and right. The driver seemed to have no control,” he says.

Shyam Pahurkar says he is tired of complaining about the hawkers. He points to the spot where he saw 19-year-old Afreen Shah being hit

“Some kids escaped death by inches,” says Kanta Shirsat, who lives above Jetwa’s shop. Her nephews and their friends were sitting on and standing around bikes when the bus nearly touched them. “I heard my nephew’s screams; there are nicks on the fingers of his right hand,” she says, “By the time I rushed out, I could only see the bus’s rear and people tailing it, screaming at the driver to slow down. Seeing the trail of tragedy, I feel guilty that I’m grateful my nephews are safe; they are all I have.” Politely, she takes our leave. 

Jetwa shows us another video. It catches the bus mowing down vehicles and people in its wake, taking up so much of the road that there’s no space for oncoming vehicles. There’s a crowd behind it as it hits the fruit market where most of the fatalities took place.

Among the crowd, are those who are limping, young men sprinting full-speed, grocery bags in hand, some jump off their two-wheelers—all a terrifying soundless symphony. Then they stop, horrified. Finally, fury crawls over the stunned faces.  

The Kurla fruit market where most of the fatalities occurred

Kurla fruit market is where you can eat healthy on a budget. Those new to the city, or on a shoe-string budget, quickly learn to stop by after peak hours to buy fruit and vegetables that’s just seconds away from going bad. 

On Monday evening, it was filled with office goers and home-managers with children in tow—like Nazma Shaikh, 35 years old and two-months-pregnant. She pushed her four-year-old daughter out of the bus’ path, but her father Fazlu Rehman and mother Azmatul were not so lucky. Fazlu has been admitted to Sion Hospital for fractured ribs; Azmatul is fighting for her life at Kurla’s Habib Hospital. Nazma is running between the two to care for her parents. 

There were others in the market, like Shyam Pahurkar, indulging in the city’s prime de-compression ritual—a cutting chai with friends. Pahurkar works at the airport’s cargo section, and lives in the building overseeing the market.

Kanta Shirsat, resident

He recreates the scene for us: “I was drinking tea with my buddies right here. We heard the commotion before we saw the bus.” He saw it smash into the parked BMC bus lorry tasked with clearing hawkers. And run over 19-year-old Afreen Shah returning from her first day at work as a make-up artiste.

Also Read: Kurla bus crash: First day of career becomes last day of 19-year-old's life

“Her bag fell a few feet away from me. So young… when they tried to move her, I saw her properly… I have a daughter her age,” he says, shaking his head.

He tries to introduce us to Lalit Shah, who sells all kinds of fans. But Shah doesn’t want to speak. His 12-year-old daughter was flung to the side in the mayhem and sustained saw small injuries. But the fall broke her hearing aid, which cost R5 lakh. When Pahurkar insists his neighbour speak to us, all Shah manages is, “It has nothing to do with me. I do not want to say anything.” 

Surekha Rajbhog

It’s 2017: BEST, and its parent body BMC agree to implement the wet-lease model to pull it out of near bankruptcy. Many elected members on the standing committee, from both sides, are not convinced of the primitive, low-accountability model. Among other things, it outsources training of bus drivers.

Pre wet-lease, BEST trains drivers for at least 10 days before putting them behind the wheel of a 12.491-tonne bus and in charge of minimum 100 lives. Post wet-lease, BEST has to believe the contractor’s paper that says a driver has been trained for the mandatory three days.

Investigations show Sanjay More, who lost control of the rogue 332, was trained for a mere five minutes as he was an experienced mechanised heavy vehicle driver.

Hareshbhai Jetwa, shopkeeper

In 2017, during the wet lease effort, BEST was advised to take a leaf out of London’s public transport system, which was also undergoing privatisation. The prevalent thought among BMC and BEST management at the time was that since BEST had inherited logistics, routes and optimisation of fleet from the British, the transition could also mirror its London counterpart.

This ticks off Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Director of Strategy, Transport for London (TfL). “Many people in India say things like if London’s bus system can do it, so can we, but it takes a lot of hard work,” he tells mid-day over phone. TfL’s privatisation began in 2003, intentfully and is now two decades old. “I have been against wet least system since the beginning; we have adopted the Quality Incentive Contract (QIC).”

Under wet lease, the transport authority outsources everything, including maintenance of fleet as well as training of drivers. Under QIC, Verma informs, “we opened a training institute for drivers and they had to complete a few weeks of training to operate a new, empty bus. Even if privatised, under QIC, TFL oversees training, route management, cleanliness or even punctuality of drivers.” A few weeks’ training familiarises a driver with the bus’s machinery, builds muscle and reflexes to 
imagined emergencies.

Shashi Verma

BEST has a total of 7,212 drivers, out of which 6,563 are attached to four wet-lease contractors. It is alleged that More trained only for five minutes on an electric BEST bus; Estimating by CCTV footage and personal accounts, the rogue 332’s carnage from Kurla Station to Ambedkar Colony seemed to be less than four minutes.
 
332
Route number of the bus that lost control last Monday on SG Barve Marg, Kurla West

5 min
The alleged training time that the driver undertook

6,563
No. of BEST buses under wet-lease via contractors

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