CHENNAI: The argument was over a petty issue, but the consequence was big, as big as an MTC bus!
High on liquor, and with a mind craving to exact ‘revenge’ on the conductor with whom he had the tiff, a drunk man hijacked a bus from Thiruvanmiyur depot in the dead of the night and drove it until he passed out some 10 kilometres away.
Police said the man, L Abraham (33), a car interior decorator, sneaked into the bus (Route No. 109, Broadway-Kovalam) parked in the terminus around 2 am on Wednesday. “The vehicle does not require a key, as it has a push-button ignition, making it easy for Abraham to start it and take off,” they said.
Since the incident happened late in the night, nobody was inside the terminus. “While driving along the ECR rashly, Abraham brushed past a lorry. It was the lorry driver, who informed the police as he grew suspicious of the man who was driving in plain clothes. Plus, the display board on the bus was also switched off,” a police source told TNIE.
When the police tracked the bus down to Akkarai, the vehicle was parked on the roadside, and Abraham had passed out on the steering wheel.
The man confessed he had stolen the bus over ‘revenge’, as he had an altercation with the bus conductor while heading to Guduvanchery the previous day,.
Abraham was arrested by the Thiruvanmiyur police and was later sent in judicial remand.
Commuter attacked
In another incident, a commuter Saravana Gurunathan (40) of Maduravoyal, a private company employee in Guindy, was attacked by a group of bus conductors, time keepers and a driver at the Koyambedu bus terminus over an argument. The video of the incident went viral on social media.
On Wednesday, as Saravanan was waiting to board a bus from Koyambedu to Maduravoyal, a bus came to the bay but allegedly started before some of the commuters, including Saravanan, could get in and left the terminus. This led to an argument between Saravanan and the MTC time keeper at the terminus.
As the issue escalated, the ganfg of MTC employees assaulted him. Based on a complaint, the CMBT police registered a case and an inquiry is on.