Chennai toll plaza vandalised in fracas

Chennai: It was a night of utter chaos at Paranur toll plaza in Chengalpet with an argument between emplo-yees and a SETC bus driver breaking into violence and vandalism.

The toll booths were totally vandalised, equipment like CCTV cameras shattered and traffic came to a standstill for three hours early on Sunday.

The incident reportedly started when the employee asked the driver to pay toll to go through and the driver challenged the toll plaza employee as to how dare they ask a government bus driver to pay toll.

The argument turned bitter and other employees there joined hands and attacked the driver and the conductor of the bus.

The agitated driver parked the bus in the middle of the road and traffic was blocked on the Chennai-Tiruchy national highway from around midnight to 3 am.

Irritated passengers from other buses in the toll plaza queue got down and started damaging CCTV’s, booths and two-wheelers of the employees turning the place into a battleground.

Chengalpet DSP Kan-dhan, on being informed, rushed to the spot along with more than 100 policemen and brought the situation under control.

People responsible for the chaos were removed from the spot and traffic was regulated. A few of the toll plaza employees who attacked the bus crew were taken to the police station and further investigations are on into the incident.

The incident has caused a major flutter in the area but such incidents seem to have become a common enough occurrence in the Paranur toll plaza.  The complaint put forth by the drivers passing through the plaza is miscommunication as most of the employees are from North India and they don’t know Tamil.

It has also been said that the employees are under the influence of alcohol most of the time and they behave rudely with drivers passing through the toll plaza.