MANDYA : A fortnight after a bus plunged into a link canal of the Visvesvaraya Canal on the Kanaganamaradi-Vadesamudra road in Pandavapura taluk claiming the lives of 30 passengers, the police have succeeded in arresting its driver Shivanna in Bengaluru.
He was produced before the local JMFC court which granted him bail on Monday. Shivanna, who had been booked by the police under the IPC sections 279 and 304(A) following the accident on November 24, was brought to the district on Sunday. The 53-year-old man who drove the ill-fated private ‘Rajakumar’ bus was working as a waiter at a hotel in Bengaluru, when the police reached him with the help of his relative.
A native of Holalu in Mandya taluk, Shivanna is also learnt to have told the investigators that he “had to plough the bus into the canal to avoid hitting an electricity pole after the steering wheel got jammed”.Sources told TNIE that Shivanna called up his relative soon after the accident to a place and the duo later travelled to Bengaluru.
After joining a hotel in the state capital where he had been doing odd jobs, he was also keeping track of the developments related to the accident both on TV channels and the newspapers. Shivanna kept his cell phone switched off. But prior to that, he had called up his wife.
The policemen, during their investigation, learnt about Shivanna’s relative, who had gone to Bengaluru on the day of the accident. When they quizzed him, he finally spilled the beans. Shivanna told police that he had 25 years of driving experience, but it was the first time that an accident occurred with him at the wheel.