COIMBATORE/TIRUPPUR: A large number of passengers gathered in front of the Singanallur bus stand in Coimbatore on Friday morning, upset over inadequate bus services especially to Madurai and Theni districts. A lot of passengers who had arrived at the Dharapuram bus stand in Tiruppur also could not find enough services to southern districts on the voting day.
At Singanallur bus stand passengers alleged that they had been waiting over two hours and not a single bus departed to southern districts of the State from there. At 10.30am the agitated passengers tried to hold a sit-in before the bus stand but police prevented it .
Police claimed that buses had left for Madurai and Theni on Thursday night. Traffic was halted for more than 20 minutes due to large gathering. Police sources said they contacted the TNSTC officials who in turn arranged the bus within the next one hour. The police also assured to arrange additional buses.
A large number of passengers also assembled at Dharapuram bus stand around 6:00 a.m, said sources. They claimed they were natives of Dindigul, Madurai, Pudukkottai and Ramanathapuram districts. There were similar scenes at Palladam and Kangeyam as passengers had to wait for several hours for a bus. At Palladam, passengers said they didn’t get a bus on the Coimbatore-Madurai route for more than 3 hours. At Kangeyam several people were waiting for buses to Tiruchi, Kumbakonam and Thanjavur city.
Cop manhandles irate passenger
Meanwhile, it was alleged that a cop manhandled a passenger for questioning the delay in buses. According to sources, “A team of officials with DySP (Dharapuram) S Kalaiarasan arrived at the spot and tried to pacify the crowd. As things got out of hand, a few passengers confronted police and began to argue with him. Responding to the allegation, DySP said, “It was just an argument with passengers. One passenger over-reacted to the incident. He was not injured.”