Bharat Bandh: Mob tries to burn school bus with children on board

Gopalganj: A school bus with several children on board was saved from a potentially fatal attack by a group of people because of the timely intervention of police in Bihar's Gopalganj . A mob tried to set the bus on fire during the Bharat Bandh called by some groups against a recent Supreme Court order on reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs).

However, the Gopalganj police and district administration thwarted the attempt.

Visuals showed the yellow bus surrounded by the mob armed with sticks. A man was seen burning a tyre right under the bus. Several burning tyres were seen scattered on the road on which the bus was trying to pass.

Another video showed some men stopping a bike, with a woman riding pillion, which tried to pass through the area.

The daylong nationwide strike called by some Dalit and Adivasi groups against the Supreme Court's verdict on the sub-classification of Scheduled Castes affected normal life in Bihar and Jharkhand as well as tribal areas of various states.

The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.

The Chhattisgarh unit of the Congress said the government should consider the "legitimate demands" of the protesters sympathetically. However, the BJP's prominent tribal leader Faggan Singh Kulaste accused the Opposition of politicising the Supreme Court's ruling on the issue.

Twenty-one organisations across the country had called for the Bharat Bandh against the apex court's order, which they said would harm the basic principles of reservation. The protesters put up rail and road blockades in several districts of Bihar, and police used batons and water cannons to disperse them. Darbhanga and Buxar witnessed disruption in train services while traffic was blocked in Patna, Hajipur, Darbhanga, Jehanabad, and Begusarai districts.