Bengaluru: Activists outsmarted the police, diverted their attention and carried out attacks with impunity, pushing the city to the brink on Monday. The epicentre of trouble was Mysuru Road, especially the traffic junction near the KSRTC satellite bus-stand.
When the police were alerted about activists running amok and targeting Tamil Nadu registration vehicles around noon, a big contingent of Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel was deployed near the Satellite Bus Stand. By then, 4-5 vehicles, including a car, had already been set on fire.
As the police and RAF personnel kept an eye on the swelling crowds of activists, a fringe group was getting ready to create trouble in other parts of the city. They set out on their motorbikes and hunted for Tamil Nadu vehicles in nearby areas, even as the larger group of activists kept the police engaged by blocking traffic on the highway and shouting slogans, sources from the area said.
The troublemakers scoured through New Timberyard Layout, Girinagar, Byatrayanapura, Hosakerehalli, Nayandahalli, Muneshwara Block and Rajarajeshwarinagar on their two-wheelers, zeroed in on the bus shed of the Salem-based KPN Travels in D’Souza Layout, and set 56 buses on fire at one go.
The arsonists, aged between 15 and 35, collected petrol from their two-wheelers, poured it on waste clothes and set vehicles on fire. They rioted in teams and made sure that the roads were blocked to prevent fire tenders from reaching trouble areas on time. It also emerges that the miscreants had a better communication network than the cops and managed to torch nearly 80 vehicles right under the nose of the police.
