A six-year-old girl suffered multiple head injuries after she slipped out of a moving school bus when a portion of the vehicle’s floor caved in near Sonarpara village of Birbhum, close to the Bengal-Jharkhand border, on Thursday morning.

The incident, which comes days after a pool car carrying students fell into a ditch at Polba in Hooghly, shows unfit vehicles continue to ferry schoolchildren.

Shagufta Naim, a Class I student at DAV Public School in Jharkhand’s Maheshpur, is under treatment at the Muraroi block hospital in Birbhum. Doctors have suggested a brain scan to rule out internal head injuries.

Shagufta used to travel to the school from her hometown in Birbhum’s Muraroi, which is 8km away.

DAV Public School has hundreds of branches across the country and is run by the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College Trust and Management Society. The school was set up in Maheshpur in 2006 and at least 50 students from Birbhum, mainly Muraroi, study there.

Sources said Shagufta was in the bus that had around 28 students. She and five others were in a seat behind the rear wheels of the bus. The bus came to a halt when the students raised a cry and informed the staff that Shagufta had slipped out of the bus through a gap on the floor of the vehicle. By the time the bus came to a halt, it had travelled 500m from where the kid fell.

The bus returned to the accident site and took Shagufta to Muraroi, where she was admitted to the hospital. Students, who were travelling in the bus, said Shagufta had a close shave as she fell behind the vehicle’s rear wheel.

A student said the accident happened when Shagufta had stood up from her seat and a wooden plank on the floor gave way. “It is scary to think that the floor of a moving bus caved in. It goes to show the rickety condition of the bus. I was shocked when I heard about the accident. We had been asking the school authorities to replace the bus but they did not listen to us,” said Naim Reza, primary school teacher and Shagufta’s father.

Shagufta’s mother Bilkis Begum is a staff nurse at the Muraroi block hospital. “I shudder to think what would have happened if she had fallen between the front and rear wheels of the bus. The guardians decided to submit a written complaint to the principal on Monday,” she said.

The girl has received multiple injuries to the head and other parts of the body after she fell onto the road.

School principal S.N. Singh said: “The vehicle had gone for repairs and joined the fleet on Wednesday. The portion of the floor that had caved in might not have been properly fitted. The children could have been jumping on the floor. However, I have taken off the bus from the fleet and another vehicle will ferry students from Muraroi.”

Asked whether the vehicle had a fitness certificate, Singh said: “The vehicle had been taken on rent. The bus has been removed from service and its agreement cancelled.”

A group of guardians, however, said they had complained to the school authorities about the damaged wooden floor of the bus.

“My daughter had complained that the wooden floor made noise when they walked on it. I had asked the driver and the school to replace it. After the accident, the driver said the school had been informed but nothing had been done. The bus is at least 18 years old,” said a guardian.