Lakshmi was a three-year old homeless child who lived with her family under the Nehru Place flyover in New Delhi. She was also the poster child for an NGO working on human rights issues. On Monday, a day before the National Girl Child Day, Lakshmi was run over by a bus.
The Times of India reported that Lakshmi was playing with empty plastic bottles when one of the bottles rolled onto the street and she ran towards it only to be run over by a bus.
Lakshmi's family has been living under the flyover ever since they moved to New Delhi from Ajmer in Rajasthan. Since moving to Delhi, the family has had to face other tragedies.
According to TOI, Lakshmi had an older brother, Teju, who died under the same flyover because he had pneumonia. Lakshmi's father Mukesh is a labourer and her mother, Sharda, who suffers from tuberculosis, used to sell balloons and flowers at traffic signals.
Unlike other parents who share the space under the flyover with them, Sharda and Mukhesh wanted to send Lakshmi to school.
Sharda is heartbroken and blames herself for Lakshmi's death. "It is my fault," she told the Times of India. "We would have left this place, but had to stay on for my medical treatment."