Kurla BEST bus crash toll rises to 9

MUMBAI: The BEST bus tragedy in Kurla has claimed its ninth victim, with Mehtaab Shaikh, 22, a resident of Govandi, succumbing to his injures at 11:45am at Sion Hospital on Thursday. Shaikh was in Kurla on that fateful night, returning from a friend’s wedding when the runaway bus ploughed through a crowded street on December 9.

“We were walking on the road when the bus, on the opposite side, went berserk,” said Shaikh’s friend Mohammed Sajid. His cousin, Inzamam Sheikh, who sustained minor leg injuries in the accident, said, “Mehtaab lived with his aunt for around four years in Mumbai, and was enrolled in an IT course. He taught school children and also had a job interview coming up.”

Shaikh sustained major head injuries in the accident and was admitted to Bhabha Hospital in Kurla. However, family and friends claimed he did not receive proper medical attention here and shifted him to Sion Hospital. “Bhabha Hospital merely gave him painkillers, and did not even clean his wounds properly. It took some time to get him to Sion Hospital, where he was looked at immediately,” said Inzamam. On Thursday last week, though, the hospital told the family that Shaikh’s chances of survival were slim.

The medical officer on duty at Sion Hospital, said, “Mehtaab had a subdural hematoma (a brain bleed). He was operated on but did not show any sign of improvement. He was on a ventilator and died on Thursday.” After a post-mortem, Shaikh’s family will take his body to Bihar, where his mother is waiting.

On Monday, the eighth victim of the crash, a 58-year-old vegetable vendor Fazlu Rehman Ahmed Pasha Shaikh, died from head injuries, also at Sion Hospital.