Nine drunken youngsters assaulted a KSRTC bus driver and conductor at Padubidri near here on the morning of Saturday, December 3. Police managed to arrest 5 of the accused while they are on the lookout for the rest 4.
Kaushik, Nihal, Joel, Chinthan, Hitesh, Saurav, Akash, Aditya, Dhanesh are the accused. They are all students of three prestigious colleges in Mangaluru.
As per details, these nine students were on ‘wheeling’ with bikes after their drinks from night to early morning. They did not allow the Bengaluru-Bhatkal KSRTC bus to overtake the bikes from Suratkal to Mulky. Bus driver somehow managed to overtake the bikes at Mulky after he moved the bus away from the road to do so. The students, who were intentionally stopping the KSRTC bus from overtaking, got angry with the bus driver for overtaking them.
The bikers stopped the bus at Padubidri and abused the driver Girish Kumar. Then they assaulted him with their hands. Additional driver Jettappa and conductor Nagaraja Shetty who tried to intervene were also assaulted by the students. The bus had 23 passengers. The passengers got down from the bus and managed to catch one of the students. Other 8 fled from the spot.
Padubidri police, who came to the spot, arrested the student and asked him to phone other students. As per instructions from police, he told others that they would complain against the bus driver and conductor to police. Upon hearing this, four of the accused appeared at the police station within few minutes. The police arrested them.
4 of the students did not turn up at the police station. They are yet to be arrested.
Police said they have seized 3 bikes from the accused.
One of the arrested students named Nihal is said to be the son of DySP Ganapati who had committed suicide in Madikeri. As per sources, Nihal tried his best to influence the police using his late father’s name.
