A game of cricket during his morning school recess proved fatal for 13-year-old Suraj Singh, who died right outside the gates of his Jogeshwari school after he was run over by a dumper truck on Thursday at 10.30 am.

Suraj was a class V student of Abdul Qureshi High School at Behram Baug, Jogeshwari.

According to his classmates, Suraj and some other boys were playing cricket on the road outside his school when he was knocked down by the truck, which belonged to a contractor identified only as Chouhan. The driver fled from the spot of the accident after seeing a crowd begin to gather and is still absconding. Officers of the Oshiwara police station registered a case of causing death by rash and negligent driving against the driver.

“After the accident, the boy was taken to Cooper Hospital. However, he died on the spot since the dumper was moving at full speed when it hit him,” said Police Inspector Dattatrayya Sankhe of Oshiwara police station. “We have spoken to the contractor and are presently trying to trace the driver. The case has been compounded by the fact that the driver did not even stop to offer assistance to the boy or inform authorities,” added Sankhe.

Resident of a transit camp in Jogeshwari, Suraj’s father Nagendra Singh (35) is a security guard at a suburban cake shop. His mother Bhanu Singh (30) and younger brother Arjun (11) were inconsolable on Thursday afternoon. “It’s as if she is mad with grief,” said Rita Mishra (30), a neighbour.

“When we reached the scene of the accident, the crowd had caught three workers sitting in the back of the truck. They said the driver had been drunk,” said Deepak Yadav (20), another neighbour. “The teachers took him to the hospital,” added Shyom Yadav (14), who studies in the same school.