Date:28/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/28/stories/2008122850450100.htm

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College bus stoned; five students and driver hurt

Sudipto Mondal

The victims were on a trip to Mysore from Mangalore

The shattered windshield of the college bus that was attacked on Friday.

MANGALORE: A bus taking pre-university students from Mangalore on an excursion to Mysore was attacked on the outskirts of the city allegedly by Bajrang Dal activists late on Friday.

The bus, which had a group of Hindu, Muslim and Christian students, belonged to the Matha Educational Trust P.U. College in the State Bank area here. The students were on an official college trip.

Of the 40 students on board, five have received minor injuries caused by shattered glass. The bus driver has been injured in the head after he was struck by a stone flung by the attackers. A case has been registered by Mangalore Rural police.

Principal of the college Swaroopa N. Shetty told The Hindu that a group of over 15 men, armed with swords, rods and clubs, forced their way into the bus as it negotiated slow-moving traffic on the stretch of the National Highway 48 that passes through Adyar.

A student said: “When we asked them why they were targeting us, they told us to stop cultivating friends from other communities.”

Ms. Shetty wondered how somebody could do this. She said: “We are an educational institution that has its doors open for students from all communities. How and why should we segregate our students?”

When contacted by The Hindu, president of the city unit of the Bajrang Dal Sharan Pumpwell said: “It is a natural reaction from us against those who dare to commit moral violations.”

He claimed that the attack on the bus was based on a tip off by one of the students who was also part of the excursion. “Our boy informed us that several Hindu girls were travelling in the bus which also had Muslim and Christian boys,” he said.

In a separate incident on the same day, a salesman working with a countrywide mobile service providing company was attacked allegedly by Bajrang Dal activists. Officials of the Kadri police station said that no case had been registered in connection with this incident as the two parties had agreed to “compromise”. They said that the salesman was badly hurt, but was out of danger.

Explaining the reasons behind the attack on the salesman, Mr. Pumpwell said that he had “dared to gain the affection of a Hindu girl”.

Superintendent of Police (Dakshina Kannada) N. Sateesh Kumar dismissed the claims of the Bajrang Dal leader as baseless.

He said the police suspected the hand of one Krishnaprasad, a resident of Bangalore, to be behind the attack on the bus. Mr. Kumar said that old rivalry was believed to be the cause for the incident.