Daijiworld Media Network – Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Apr 23: Two students travelling from Kochi to Bengaluru were allegedly brutally beaten up by the staff of a private bus for complaining about breakdown of the bus and for demanding alternative travel arrangements.

Suresh Kallada Tours and Travels is the company which operated this bus.

As soon as the video of the beatings went viral on social media on Sunday, hundreds of people from Karnataka and Kerala demanded the suspension of the bus operator's licence. Some said that they similar ordeal with the transporter's staff in the past.

Jacob Philip, an entrepreneur, was one of the passengers on the Kochi-Bengaluru bus. He said through his Facebook post that he boarded the bus at midnight at Haripad in Alappuzha district and it broke down soon after. The Haripad police came to the spot after some time and found that the bus crew members were being rude to the passengers and failed to promise them alternative travel arrangements.

The driver and the attendant then fled the scene. Police too expressed helplessness and left after 30 minutes. But the attendant was traced later and though his phone and subsequently Kallada management was contacted. Passengers worried about their safety argued with the Kallada management. In the meantime, some senior police officers reached the spot and convinced Kallada to arrange another bus by 3 am. The driver was brought to the spot and asked to proceed.

However, after an hour and a half of the journey, Kallada staffers waylaid the bus and started thrashing three young passengers who were vocal in their protest against the mismanagement. The situation turned ugly when the bus reached Vytala, Kochi, at 4.30 am. Over 10 goons dragged the two passengers out from the bus and beat them up. They did not allow other passengers to get off the bus. They let off the two youths after a lot of pleading. The bus finally reached Bengaluru at 4.30 pm instead of its scheduled arrival at noon.

"I have been getting threats to delete the post,” Jacob said speaking to an English media.

Following the incident, the Maradu police in the Kochi city registered a case of assault against three Kallada staffers.

According to the Maradu police, they had received information about the incident around 5.30 am and soon went to Vytilla, where they found the three youths who were assaulted. The youths said they were studying in Erode, Tamil Nadu.

Two of them were identified as Ajayagosh, from Thiruvananthapuram, and Mohammed, from Palakkad. Police asked them to go to a nearby hospital. But when the police reached the hospital later, they found the youths had not gone there. But since the footage of the incident had surfaced, police registered a case against three Kallada staffers. Further action would be taken soon, the station house officer of the Maradu police station said.

Police further said they tried contacting the tour operator's office in Kochi but there was no response. They later got in touch with Kallada through a travel operator at Haripad.