Maharashtra News: Travelling To Karnataka? MSRTC Suspends State Transport Buses After Attack On Bus, Driver

2025-02-22 03:20:56

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Mumbai/Belgavi Feb 22 (PTI) Maharashtra Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik on Saturday ordered the suspension of the state transport buses to Karnataka after an MSRTC bus was attacked in the neighbouring state.

Sarnaik said the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus, which was plying from Bengaluru to Mumbai, was attacked in Chitradurga around 9.10 pm on Friday by pro-Kannada activists.

Also Read | Viral: Kannada bus conductor assaulted for not speaking in Marathi in Belagavi

They also blackened the face of driver Bhaskar Jadhav and assaulted him, the minister said.

A police case has been registered in Karnataka in connection with the alleged attack.

“Bus services to Karnataka won't be resumed unless the Karnataka government makes its stand clear on the issue,” he said.

On the same day, a conductor of the state-owned transport corporation bus of Karnataka was allegedly assaulted on the outskirts of the district headquarters town of Belagavi bordering Maharashtra, for not replying to a girl in Marathi.

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It is unclear whether the attack on the MSRTC bus in Chitradurga was in retaliation to the alleged assault on the conductor.

Sarnaik said the MSRTC bus (MH-14 KQ 7714) had barely crossed Chitradurga when pro-Kannada activists attacked the vehicle.

Four people have been arrested in another case for allegedly assaulting the conductor in Belagavi, the police said. The conductor has also been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, they said.

With tears in his eyes, the 51-year-old conductor, Mahadevappa Mallappa Hukkeri, on Friday told reporters that a girl who boarded the bus with her male friend at Sulebhavi village spoke in Marathi . Hukkeri said he told her that he did not know Marathi and asked her to speak in Kannada.

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