Police are searching for the driver of a minibus in Moscow who threw a 9-year-old girl off the bus because she did not have the fare, leaving her out in freezing temperatures for hours.
According to a statement posted on the Investigative Committee's official website, the girl was reported missing by her mother in northeast Moscow around 9:00 p.m. after not returning home from a music lesson.
The girl later told her parents that after finishing the lesson at 4 p.m., she sat on the minibus to go home but was thrown off when the driver realized she did not have the 40-ruble fare.
With no phone or money to get home, she apparently walked for several hours, eventually settling at the Losinoostrovskaya train station, where she was found by a security guard around midnight.
"And how about that driver, who left a child out in the cold because she did not have the fare! We will definitely find the scoundrel and punish him for leaving that child in danger," Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin wrote on Twitter.
Investigators are looking into the incident to determine whether the driver is criminally liable. The driver may face charges of knowingly leaving the girl in danger, which is punishable by up to one year in prison.
