Gurgaon: Shivansh Tripathi had just shown his father his report card. He got a chocolate as a reward and ran out of his shop, heading back to his house in a narrow lane in Bhondsi’s Shyam Kunj area. He had almost made it across the road and was just 20 metres from the house when a reversing school van ran him over.The eight-year-old Class 1 student died on Monday afternoon after a Maruti Eco van belonging to MS Public School knocked him down while backing up at speed through the lane.According to police, the Eeco driver, Rajesh (29), had been dropping off schoolchildren in the area. After the accident, he took Shivansh to Medanta Hospital in his car, but doctors declared the boy dead on arrival.A complaint filed by Shivansh’s father, Santosh Kumar, however, claimed the Eeco driver continued reversing the vehicle even after the child fell and crushed him under the wheels. Shivansh sustained severe head and body injuries and started to bleed from his ears and mouth.“Just minutes before the accident, Shivansh had returned from school, changed out of his uniform and rushed to show his father the report card,” his uncle Alok said. “Happy with his performance, Santosh had handed him a chocolate. He was so happy. Moments later, he was gone.”Santosh has two daughters, aged 15 and 10. “Shivansh was the youngest and the life of the house. The family is shattered,” Alok said.Police said they were alerted after the hospital reported a child brought in dead following a road accident. According to police, CCTV footage retrieved from nearby areas showed the child was returning home, and near a corner, he began sprinting. “As he was approaching the van, he fell on the road, and the driver could not see him while reversing the car,” a police officer said.A team from Maruti Kunj police chowki later inspected the accident spot, collected blood samples and other evidence. Police said an FIR was registered at Bhondsi police station under sections 281 (rash driving) and 106(1) (causing death by negligence) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and the driver would be arrested soon.Monday’s death is the latest in a series of fatal accidents involving school vehicles in the region. In Oct 2025, a six-year-old girl was killed in the Pataudi area after a tractor struck her as she crossed the road to board her school bus, which then ran over her. In Aug 2018, a middle-aged couple on a bicycle was crushed from behind by a school bus in Sector 44. In Dec 2017, a five-year-old boy was killed in Mushedpur, Farrukhnagar, when he had come with his father to pick up his elder sister.
