Chennai: MTC conductor stabbed in moving bus

Chennai: A conductor of Metro Transport Corporation bus (route number M-52) was stabbed by a youth in moving bus on Wednesday when the crew member asked the commuter to move inside from the footboard of the bus, which was not crowded.

The bus plying between Pozhichallur and Hasthinapuram was moving on Kundrathur road when the incident happened. Conductor D. Thiruvengadam, 50, asked the man repeatedly to get inside and not stand on the footboard when the latter pulled out a foldable knife and started stabbing him. The incident happened around 10.45 am.

Thiruvengadam suffered multiple injuries and started bleeding even as the passengers started shouting in panic. By the time driver Anbazhgan stopped the bus the attacker had jumped off and ran away from the scene leaving the knife behind in the bus.   

Seeing the conductor bleeding all over, other passengers too got down from the bus. The driver, with his bleeding colleague inside the bus, drove the vehicle straight into the Chromepet GH, where Thiruvengadam was admitted initially. He was later shifted to a private hospital, where he is nursing his 32 stitches.

Following the incident, MTC workers at Tambaram and Chromepet depots, who came to attend the afternoon shift, refused take buses out on their scheduled trips saying there was no safety for their lives in the city.  They resorted to a flash strike for nearly an hour from 1 pm.

Only after the police promised to track the suspect and to take strong action against him, MTC employees called off their flash strike and started taking buses out. Police later said they had rounded up a suspect wearing jeans and T shirt who matched the description of the witnesses. Police identified him as Venky alias Venkitesan, 28. Police have arrested Vicky alias Venkitesan, 28, of Anagaputhur for attacking conductor. He worked as spare call taxi driver.