Students clash over bus day' celebrations

CHENNAI: The ‘bus day’ celebrations of Nandanam -Government College of Arts and Sciences turned awry after a group of students from another city college targeted the bus and its occupants, on Thursday. The clash left the bus with damaged windshields while the MTC crew suffered minor injuries. Students of Nandanam college flagged the MTC route 41D bus, plying between Mandaiveli and Avadi, near Blue Star bus stop in Anna Nagar when it was heading to Mandaiveli, at around 1.30 pm.

Students, who were dismissive of the warnings from the bus conductor Shankar and driver Ravi, forced the passengers to cut short their trip and made them get down at that bus stop. About 100 students boarded the bus while some of them climbed onto the roof of the bus and danced all the way to their campus, to the beat of locally composed songs. When the bus was passing along New Avadi Road, students traveling in the bus taunted some of the students from Pachayappa’s College, triggering the clash.

Pachayappa’s College students got together and began attacking the bus and those traveling in it. The MTC crew was also assaulted in the melee and the driver took the bus straight to Kilpauk police station. While the students from Pachaiyappa’s College managed to flee after the clash, about 20 students from Nandanam college, who were present in the bus, were taken into custody for interrogation. Preliminary investigations suggest that the attack was primarily due to inter-college bus route rivalry. Five knives were recovered from students. Six Pachayappa’s College students were arrested and remanded to judicial custody.