Missing TSRTC bus from Hyderabad found dismantled in Maharashtra

A bus from Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) went missing from the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station (MGBS) in Imlibun a few days ago. On Thursday, it was found dismantled to scrap almost unrecognizable, in Nanded, Maharashtra about 290 km of the city.

On Tuesday night, the driver went to sleep after parking the bus at the station. "He woke up around 5 am the next morning only to realise that the bus was missing," said Ravinder.

The search teams that were deployed to track the vehicle found the bus, to their utter surprise, found it dismantled. They left behind the chassis, license plates and tyres at the location. "We did not expect that they would dismantle the entire bus," M Ravinder, executive director, TSRTC, said.

Sultan Bazaar division Police teams immediately rushed to Nanded and the senior officials here were in touch all the time with their counterparts in Nanded area.

"They cut the bus body using gas cutters and except tyres, rest of the vehicle was dismantled. The teams are yet to inspect the vehicle completely," an official said.

Initially, it was suspected that the bus was taken to Toopran in the Medak district, but CCTV images of several checkpoints and toll gates showed that the bus was near Nanded, said M Ramesh, deputy commissioner of police, east zone

The police informed that the bus was directly taken to a workshop in Nanded.

A police official told, "The workshop owner informed us that four people approached him with a bus and asked him to reduce it to scrap. They also told the workshop owner that they will come back later to collect the scrap."

'Security needs to be tightened in every bus station'

Vemula Prashanth Reddy, State Transport Minister on Thursday instructed the officials to tighten the security in all the bus stations in city limit and also across the State.

The Minister held a meeting with officials of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) regarding an express bus of the TSRTC parked at the Central Bus Station (CBS) being stolen early on Wednesday.

TSRTC Ravinder, Executive Director (Administration), C Vinod Kumar, Executive Director (Greater Hyderabad Zone), regional managers of Hyderabad and Secunderabad divisions were also part of the meeting.

Prashanth Reddy told lack of security was the main reason behind the robbery of the bus from the CBS and security should be arranged in all the bus stations. He said proper action would be taken against those who took the security in the bus station for granted.