Date:25/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/25/stories/2006082523670100.htm

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APSRTC bus set ablaze at Jubilee Hills

Staff Reporter

Bus crew manages to douse the flames before they spread

PENT UP FURY: The RTC bus which was stoned before being set ablaze at Jubilee Hills on Thursday. - Photo: G. Krishnaswamy

HYDERABAD: Unidentified persons set an APSRTC bus on fire at Jubilee Hills here on Thursday evening in the backdrop of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) intensifying its agitation for a separate State. Fortunately, driver G. Sunil Kumar Reddy, conductor D. Ramulu and three other passengers escaped unhurt.

The bus crew managed to douse the flames before they spread. The bus belonging to the BHEL depot operates on route no. 223Y/A from Patancheru to Ambedkar Open University. It was proceeding to the university around 5 p.m. when a group of seven persons waiting near actor Sri Hari's residence gestured the driver to stop.

Stones pelted

"I thought they were passengers. Even as I slammed the brakes, two of them pelted stones on the windscreen breaking it," the driver recalled. Another man in his mid-40s wearing a `khadi' shirt and trousers started abusing the driver asking him to get down while the others poured some fuel on the left front tyre and set it on fire.

Meanwhile, two others entered the bus from the rear, poured fuel on a seat and set it ablaze forcing the passengers to get down. While six persons fled as the bus driver and conductor tried to douse the flames, another man sped away on a motorcycle.

"They neither raised any slogans nor carried any flags or pamphlets indicating their organisation," said Jubilee Hills Inspector M. Srinivas.