A six-year-old boy from Kerala died after he was left behind on a bus for several hours in Dubai on Saturday. The boy has been identified as Mohammed Farhan Faisal. He is the son of Faisal, a native of Muzhuppilangadi in Thalassery.

He was a student at an Islamic centre in Al Quoz, reports the khaleejtimes. The child had dozed off after boarding the bus from Karama, the report says, quoting family sources.

The child was left behind on the bus after all the other students got down at the centre at 8 am. The Dubai police was alerted about the tragedy by 3pm. The child was found as the driver took the bus out to drop the students back home.

The boy, who was the youngest of three children, had joined the centre earlier this year. The child’s parents are residents of Dubai. Faisal is a businessman who runs business in Kerala and Dubai.

The police is probing the death. An autopsy was carried out on the boy’s body. According to the report the official cause of the death was not declared and that a similar instance had been reported previously in 2014. In that instance, a student in Abu Dhabi suffocated after he was left behind in a bus. The child’s death had triggered a debate over the need for child safety in buses. Abu Dhabi’s Education Department had ordered all school buses install sensors and cameras after the incident.  

In another recent incident from Saudi Arabia in September 2018, a child suffocated to death in a school bus.