A school bus belonging to Manthan International School in Tellapur, Sangareddy district, caught fire on Tuesday, September 8, while students were boarding, triggering serious concerns among parents about the institution's safety standards and emergency preparedness.
Four students were inside the vehicle when smoke was first spotted. School staff escorted the children out, and no injuries were reported. However, by the time staff arrived with fire extinguishers and water, the bus had been completely engulfed in flames. The incident is believed to have occurred between 2.30 pm and 3 pm, which is the scheduled boarding time for that route.
Parents say they were left in the dark for hours. One parent, Krishna Vamsi, said the school only sent a vague email around 5 pm stating that "transportation will be delayed." He said families learned what had actually happened through a parent group and video clips shared online, not through any direct communication from the school.
Parents visited the school on Wednesday seeking answers but were allegedly told by the management that the International Schools Partnership (iSP), the governing body of the school based in Bengaluru, would take a decision only after its officials arrived. The iSP runs two schools in Hyderabad. The Mandal Educational Officer also visited the school on Wednesday and made enquiries into the incident.
In a letter to the school administration, parent Sukhamrit Kaur described what she personally witnessed during the evacuation. She said she picks up her daughter herself and lives within a kilometre of the school, yet she could smell the smoke from her home. She said panicked students were running onto the street, and she personally helped drop two children herself.
In her letter, Kaur raised pointed questions about whether the school followed any standard operating procedure. "Did the school know that these children had left the premises? Did the school know where they were? Were their parents contacted? Was there a complete student-by-student headcount? Was every child accounted for before the situation was considered under control?" she wrote.
She also cited another mother, whose child was on the affected bus designated as T18, who said she received no information about her child's whereabouts. "Even if there were 20 to 30 children on that bus, was it not the school's most fundamental responsibility to proactively contact the parents of every child travelling on T18 and tell them?" Kaur asked.
Kaur also flagged what she described as a similar episode in January 2026, noting that in that case too, only parents of children on the affected bus appeared to have been informed. She drew a clear distinction between protecting a child's personal information and selectively keeping other parents in the dark about a serious safety incident. She expressed dissatisfaction that the school appeared to be treating the matter as a minor episode, and that top management had not responded at all.
A group of concerned parents has since banded together and is now formally seeking action from multiple authorities. One parent researched the bus through the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways' VAHAN citizen portal and found that while the portal lists it as a non-AC vehicle, the bus was operating an air conditioning system. Parents have asked the Transport Department to verify whether that system was authorised.
The parents have addressed a joint letter to the District Collector of Sangareddy, the Superintendent of Police, the Director of School Education, the District Educational Officer, the District Transport Officer, and the District Fire Officer. The letter calls for an investigation into previous fire incidents involving the school's fleet, a full-fleet inspection, preservation of forensic evidence from the burnt bus, and a safety assessment of fire detection and alarm systems across classrooms and other areas of the school.
