Kurla BEST bus mishap: Psychological test reveals driver is not mentally ill

MUMBAI: Sanjay More, the arrested accused in the December 9 BEST bus accident in which eight people lost their lives and 41 others were injured, was not mentally ill, according to tests conducted by the police. More, 54, also does not suffer from epilepsy or any other brain-related diseases, officials said.

The police made More undergo a psychological test at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital and Municipal Medical College in Sion to confirm if he had any mental illness before the trial begins in court. “The test report confirmed that his mental condition is normal and he had no mental disorders,” said a police officer. “We carried out the tests to confirm that More was normal mentally so that he wouldn’t take [such] a stand in the future during the trial.”

The bus driver’s blood report, meanwhile, confirmed that he was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident, according to the police.

The officer quoted earlier said the police have also received a report from the regional transport office stating that the electric bus involved in the accident was working fine and there was no brake failure or any other technical failure, as claimed by More. “We are now waiting for one test report from BEST, which will also be about the bus,” said the police officer.

The police are now studying BEST’s agreements with its wet-lease operators and the training procedure for drivers. This is being done since More told the police that his training to drive an electric bus consisted of only three laps. While More is an experienced bus driver, he had never driven an electric vehicle before December 1. According to BEST’s internal standard operating procedure, bus drivers need to go through six weeks of training before transitioning from manual to automatic electric buses.

“He has been still claiming that the vehicle went out of control, and when he tried to stop it, he accidentally pressed the accelerator instead of the brakes. Finally, he managed to stop it at the cemented gate of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Nagar in Kurla West,” said the police officer.

Eight people were killed and 41 others were injured after a speeding BEST electric bus driven by More ploughed into several pedestrians and vehicles near Anjum-I-Islam school on SG Barve Marg in Kurla West on December 9. More was arrested and charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder. A metropolitan magistrate court remanded him to police custody till December 21.