Pro-jallikattu protest: With MTC buses going off roads, commuting becomes nightmare

Chennai: Commuting took a huge toll in the city that boasts of effective private transportation as Metropolitan Transport Corporation suspended its service on Monday, following an outbreak of violence that was targeting buses.

The unrest was witnessed after city police started evicting pro-jallikattu supporters at Marina beach on Monday morning. As buses stopped their service following the violence around 12pm, thousands of commuters including school students, office goers and women were put in a spot.

“There are no rail services in the vicinity. Things were normal in the morning, but I had a tough time to get back home, I got a lift as cans were not willing to function too,” said Vasundara Kumar, who works on Mint street.

Stranded passengers at CMBT rested at the terminus, as crowd swelled after 12 noon. Frantic walks to the Jawaharlal Nehru road in the hope to find transportation went in vain.  Murugesh, an employee from Ambattur who was waiting at the bus stand for nearly an hour, said, “Government should have operated buses with police protection. Suddenly, we are left without any transport facilities.”

Even though share autos and autos in the terminus came to the rescue, they were not operated on Poonamalle High Road, where the traffic was blocked for many hours.

Assuring that the service would be resumed from Tuesday morning, a senior official from MTC explained, “In all, 51 vehicles were destroyed by protesters and operating amid such situations is a risk to both drivers and passengers.“

Senior MTC officials have instructed drivers to rest buses in the nearby terminus, after the violence that broke on Monday morning. “Some buses were parked on the roads, as the roads were blocked. We could move them to the terminus only by Monday night.”