COIMBATORE: Condemning the lack of bus services, over 100 passengers blocked a government bus, which returned to Coimbatore from the DMK Women’s Wing West Zone conference in Tiruppur with party cadres, at Sulur bus stand on Monday evening.
Passengers alleged that many government buses had been diverted for the DMK conference, forcing them to wait for more than one and a half hours at the bus stand.
Sources said after an elderly man who had been waiting for more than an hour at the Sulur bus stand suffered a medical episode, enraged passengers blocked a government bus with 20 DMK cadres in it, travelling from Tiruppur to Coimbatore around 8.15 pm. Local DMK functionaries who arrived at the spot quarrelled with the passengers and sent the bus to Coimbatore.
A Kannan (name changed) from Tiruppur district told TNIE that he had been waiting at the Sulur bus stand since 6 pm to travel to Tiruppur, but only a few heavily crowded buses bound for Madurai passed through. “There were no frequent buses to Tiruppur. I was forced to take a friend’s bike and return to my room in Tiruppur,” he said.
A woman from Chinthamanipudur, who works at a private firm in Avinashi, told TNIE that as there were no mofussil buses, she reached Sulur by two town buses. “After that, no town buses were operated from Sulur to Gandhipuram and Ukkadam. Passengers who needed to go to the city tried to stop buses coming from Tiruppur to Coimbatore, but to no avail. I finally reached home after my husband came to pick me up,” she said. According to sources from TNSTC, around 10 to 15 buses from each branch in Coimbatore region were deployed for the DMK conference.
When asked about the issue, Sulur police station personnel said no such incident had taken place.