A little over year ago, I saw a profile picture of a small Sikh child with big, bright eyes in the local paper. Japneet Singh, who was 4 years old at that time, was crushed by the wheel of his school bus.
His death, unfortunately, wasn't unusual. My story in The New York Times on Wednesday notes that India leads the world in traffic fatalities, and that a startling number of them involve schoolchildren. Buses crash, careen down embankments, topple into gorges.
All too often in India, such accidents are shrugged off with a fatalistic attitude.
“People say, ‘It's God's wish.' But it is all our responsibility,†said Arvinder Singh, Japneet's father. Mr. Singh, who plans to create a nonprofit group committed to child safety, wants more accountability - from schools, law enforcement agencies, the government - to help prevent such accidents.
A year after Japneet's death, the family has yet to find closure. Mr. Singh said his family still could not bear to open Japneet's closet and touch his clothes or give away his toys. He said Japneet's mother always thought of him when she cooked chicken â€" the boy's favorite dish. Japneet's brother, Parmeet, who had watched him die, isn't quite sure what happened to him.
“Parmeet looks at the sky to find him,†Mr. Singh said.
