KOCHI: Competition between private buses to attract and carry more passengers has cost dearly for a bus conductor at Piravom who is now facing arrest after he obstructed a woman passenger from boarding another bus while his bus was scheduled to take passengers and leave the bus station first.
While the incident occurred at Piravom bus station on January 3, the arrest of the conductor identified as Liju Varghese, 37, of Onakoor, has become imminent with Sessions Court on January 19 dismissing his anticipatory bail petition after police strongly objected to it after registering a case against him for wrongful restraint, outraging the modesty of a woman and causing hurt. The woman had complained that the conductor while preventing her from boarding the bus touched her inappropriately and assaulted her.
Police said the accused was the conductor of a private bus ‘Sherly’ plying from Piravom private bus stand and on January 3 around 5.15 pm when the woman along with her husband was about to board the private bus ‘Christhuraj’ at Piravom private bus stand, the accused rushed towards her and restrained her from entering the bus. He also hit her body inappropriately while doing so.
Though the accused contended before the court that he had only prevented the de facto complainant from entering a bus which was not expected to collect passengers at that time, additional sessions judge G Girish refused to heed to his plea observing that “whatever be the reason for provocation for the commission of the above act, it is not possible to discard the incident involved in this case as a trivial matter.
The rivalry between the employees of private buses cannot be permitted to persist at the cost of the safety and dignity of the passengers of the bus. There is absolutely no justification for the outrageous assault committed by the accused on a lady in the presence of her husband and the whole public of that bus stand.”