The daring youth Shareef Ibrahimkutty is a hero in Pune and beyond.
His act of overpowering a state transport bus driver who went berserk on the streets of Pune on Wednesday, leading to several deaths, has come in for praise, but he says he is no hero. “I had to do it, that's all,” he says.
On Friday, it was life as usual for this 21-year old boy with his roots in Kuttipuram in Malappuram, as he went for his BCA classes in the morning. He was going to college on his ‘Pulsor 180’ motor cycle when he saw the bus knock down a woman and her daughter riding a scooter, and then hit a car.
“I first stopped to help the injured as I thought that the bus had lost control. But it slowed down and took a turn again and rushed to Naipier Road. I sensed something was really wrong and chased the bus. I kept blowing my bike horn, alerting the people around,” he recounted during a class interval.
The bus driver hit two cars between Savarkar Chowk and Samadhan Bhel shop. He slowed down on seeing barricades ahead.
“At this point, I stopped my bike, left it on the roadside and jumped onto the moving bus. I succeeded in getting in and overpowering the driver and, with the help of another person, dragging him out of the cabin."
A third-year BCA student of a Pune college, he was given a massive reception by the college authorities. “There is nothing great in what I did. Anyone would have naturally done that. It came naturally to me," he says.
Such was the melee that lasted 30 minutes over a 25-km stretch that nine people were killed, and 27 injured before the bus was immobilized and the driver, Santosh Maruti Mane, taken out.
"Don’t make me a hero. I just knew that I had to do it. That's all,” he told Deccan Chronicle over phone from his home.
His father is a merchant and his mother Saleena a fashion designer. The couple is settled in Pune and Shareef was born and brought up there.
