Kavali: 10 persons booked for thrashing RTC driver

Kavali (Nellore district): Kavali police registered cases against 10 persons for thrashing an RTC driver for petty reasons. A video of the incident, in which miscreants are seen beating the RTC driver mercilessly and even stomping, went viral triggering protests by RTC employees across the state.

The accused were identified as Deverakonda Sudheer, Malli, Siva Reddy, Wilson, Kiran and five more persons from different villages in Kavali mandal. Speaking to media here on Saturday, Kavali town DSP Venkata Ramana said on October 26 at around 6 pm, an RTC bus with number AP16Z 0702 bound for Vijayawada from Bengaluru stopped for a while at Kavali bus stand and left the place. When the bus was at fish market in the town, the bus driver B Ram Singh sounded the horn continuously as a motorcycle was blocking the way for bus.

Enraged over the bus driver blowing the horn, the motorcyclist immediately parked the vehicle on road side and dragged down the RTC driver Ram Singh from the vehicle. He began indiscriminately beat the driver in full public gaze. Onlookers intervened and stopped the attack. When the bus continued its journey, the attacker did not relent and chased the bus. He mobilised some more people through phone and stopped the RTC bus at Madhurupadu village, 5 kilometre from Kavali, and again pulled down the driver and attacked him along with his group. The video of this second mass attack went viral on Friday.

The DSP said that following complaint lodged by victim Ram Singh, cases have been registered against accused under Sections 341, 143, 307, 332, 323, 427 and 34 of IPC. Special teams have been formed to nab the culprits. Meanwhile, political parties, RTC unions condemned the incident and demanded the government to take stringent action against the culprits by arresting them immediately.

Describing the incident as highly unfortunate, TDP leader Beeda Ravichandra Yadav alleged that the persons involved in the incident were the YSRCP leaders of Kavali town. He demanded impartial probe into the incident. RTC workers under the banner of CITU staged a protest at Atmakuru bus stand in Nellore city on Saturday condemning the attack on the driver.

CITU Nellore town secretary G Nageswara Rao said they were planning to launch a statewide agitation against the attack so that no such incident recur in future.