THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) management on Wednesday tendered an apology to the public over the manhandling incident at a bus depot near here, saying it would not tolerate such incidents at any cost.
A 55-year-old man was cruelly beaten up in front of his daughter by a group of KSRTC employees at the bus depot in Kattakada on Tuesday following a dispute over students' concession, prompting the government to suspend four KSRTC staffers and the High Court to register a case on its own on the shocking incident.
In an apology note posted on Facebook, KSRTC Managing Director Biju Prabhakar termed the incident, which occurred at Kattakada bus depot, as utmost "unfortunate, painful and condemnable" and said it could not be justified.
"I apologise to the public on behalf of the institution and its other good employees for such difficulties that the girl and her father had to suffer from the KSRTC employees," the official said.
He said everyone should understand that the act of a few "mentally demented" employees, like those who were involved in the incident, was the fundamental problem of the KSRTC.
"Such people will not be protected or tolerated by the management at any cost. This is also the stand of Transport Minister Antony Raju and the state government. The direction given by the government is to uproot such weeds," Prabhakar said.
The MD of the state-run organisation also assured that a fair probe would be conducted into the incident and the guilty would be punished.
Meanwhile, Kattakada police said Section 354 (use of assault or criminal force against a woman) of the Indian Penal Code has been imposed against the accused on Wednesday.
The non-bailable section was slapped based on the statement of the girl, the daughter of the assaulted man, they said.
The accused were already booked under various sections of IPC including 143, 149, 323 on Tuesday evening.
Not just the father, but his college-going daughter was also pushed and assaulted by the staffers of the public transport carrier after a brief war of words erupted between them at the bus depot.
The assault caught wide public and media attention after a purported visual captured in a mobile phone went viral and local television channels aired it.
Four employees were suspended by the management later.