MUMBAI, Dec. 31 -- Santosh Ramesh Sawant, the 52-year-old driver of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking bus, who mowed down four and injured 11 people outside Bhandup railway station on Monday night, has blamed the occurrence on confusion on the which "mode" the electric bus was on when he started the engine. Soon after the incident on Monday, Sawant was arrested from the spot and produced before a metropolitan magistrate court in Vikhroli on Tuesday. He has been remanded to police custody up to January 3. Sawant told the officer of Bhandup police station, both after his arrest on Monday and during his interrogation on Tuesday, that when he took over the stationary vehicle outside Bhandup railway station, at the start of his shift, he assumed that the e-bus was on a "neutral" mode. It is only after he switched on the ignition and pressed the accelerator that he realised that the bus was on a "drive" mode. "When the bus started with a sudden jerk, Sawant kept pressing the accelerator, instead of releasing it and pressing the brakes. When he noticed a queue of over a 100 people facing the bus outside the station, he steered it towards the right, apparently to save those in the queue, but ended up hitting around 15 people," said the police officer. The officers, however, are yet to ascertain Sawant's claims, as they are in the midst of recording eyewitnesses statements, and scrutinising CCTV footage and videos of the incident recorded by some people present at the spot, to understand the exact sequence of events. Sawant has been booked under sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 110 (attempt to commit culpable homicide), 125(a) (acts endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita, 2023 and section 184 (dangerous driving) of the Motor Vehicles Act. Hemraj Rajput, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 7, said they received the first call of the accident at 9.47pm on Monday. On reaching the spot, Rajput said, the officers noticed that BEST bus (MHO1CV6515) which was plying on route number 606, from Bhandup station to Nardas Nagar, had crushed at least three people and injured several others. Sawant was immediately taken into custody, when he told the police that he could not apply the brakes while attempting a U-turn and crashed into the pedestrians. The police officers then called up the fire brigade officials to assist in the rescue operation. The injured were rushed to Rajawadi Hospital, in Ghatkopar, and Lokmanya Tilak General Hospital, in Sion, where four people were declared dead and nine were admitted for treatment. After Sawant was produced in court, Rajput said: "We told the court that we needed his police custody remand to ascertain the exact sequence of events and clarify his role in the accident, which will be clear after the RTO submits a report on the health of the bus. They will check if there was a technical glitch or the accident occurred due to human error." Sawant has been a BEST driver for 15 years and received training to drive an e-bus, he told police. According to BEST sources, the e-bus, which is a part of 'Fleet no 715', had no technical complaints over the last five days, and between December 6-24 the vehicle had undergone routine maintenance when battery units were changed....