Indore: ‘DPS bus with sealed speed governor ran at 77kmph on Jan 3 morning’

Indore: City police on Sunday clamped sections 420, 467 and 468 against accused arrested on Saturday for preparing fake documents and issuing fitness certificate of speed governor of the Delhi Public School bus that met with an accident on Friday.

Lasudiya police station in-charge Rajendra Soni said that transport manager of DPS Chetanya Kumawat, Neeraj Agnihotri and his employee Jalaj Meshram were arrested and produced in court on Sunday. The court sent them into police remand till January 10. Investigation revealed that Agnihotri, who is not even associated with speed governor manufacturer, had issued fitness certificate on company’s letter head. Hence, other sections of the IPC were incorporated against the trio.

Soni further said that the school owned 71 buses, including four in Dewas. “We have deployed a team of five policemen on school premises to monitor buses. Use of buses has been stopped till end of investigation. Other buses will be inspected on Monday. The speed governors too will be checked. Papers of all buses were found complete. CCTVs are installed in 66 out of 67 buses.

The speed governors are also installed in all buses. It was found properly sealed in only 30 buses. Technical experts checked a sealed speed governor and found that it ran at a speed of 77 kmph on January 3 between 7.40 and 7.42 am.

A source said that if the speed governor was sealed, then the bus speed should not have exceeded maximum limit of 50kmph. Following experts report, police suspect that all buses with sealed speed governors could be plied at a higher speed. However, police will conduct trial of all buses on Monday to ascertain their speed governors. “Eighteen out of 67 buses of the school are old more than 15 years. 12 buses are 10 to 15 years old and the rest are less than 10 years old. We have also recovered some documents of the buses for the investigation into the case,” Soni added.