Udupi Update: Attack on Bus staff, Buses Protest, Stay Off the Road
Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (SP)
Pics: Durga Digitals
9.00am, IST
Udupi, Aug 11: The buses moving out of Udupi are on strike today, protesting against the police inaction in arresting all the accused who attacked a bus driver and conductor at Ucchila on Sunday, Aug 10 afternoon. The buses are staying off the road, in tune with a press statement issued by Coastal Bus Drivers and Conductors Association president Vijay Kumar and vice president Harish Shetty yesterday, that the buses will stay whereever they are, unless all the accused are not arrested before today morning.
After a group comprising of several persons from Muloor, comprising of Sarfuddin, Hussain, Mansoor, Shariff, Rajab etc., intercepted a bus and badly bat up its driver and conductor relating to a incident in the morning in which a few members from the group had enterd into a verbal altercation with the driver of the bus for not allowing them to overtake it. The gang reportedly snatched away the mobile phone and tore down the clothes worn by the driver, apart from taking with them the bus keys.
The local people had sided with the staff of the bus, and the gang retreated after local people joined together and started retaliating. Before fleeing, they broke the window panes of the white Santro car in which they had come. When people chased the gang who were fleeing in another car and an autorickshaw, they hid inside a house nearby. The policemen later arrested two persons named Shariff and Rajab.
The office bearers of the said association held four rounds of talks with the Karkala DySP Girish, Kaup circle inspector vinay Nayak and other officials. The bus traffic on the highway, which had come to a grinding halt after the incident, resumed after about two and half hours, relying on the assurance given by the police officials. Passengers faced lot of inconviences due to this inordinate delay.
A case has been registered at Padubidri police station in this connection. Policemen are learnt to have launched a manhunt for arresting other members of the attacking gang. In the meanwhile, office bearers of an organization mobbed Padubidri police station on the night of Sunday August 10, alleging that innocent people had been arrested in connection with the said incident. In charge SP Nagaraj, who held talks with the mob, sent them back after assuring that the police will conduct investigations in a fair way and charge sheet only those who are found guilty.
Earlier: Daijiworld Flash News: