Chennai: One student was arrested and search is on for eight more following a scary incident of students brandishing a ‘pattakathi’ (machete) while travelling on the footboard of a crowded government bus to their college. Videos of the rowdy students scraping the road with the glistening machete went viral the social media on Thursday, causing huge public uproar and forcing police action.
Sleuths swooped on the government transport offices for clues on the bus and the college, before zeroing in on the suspects at the Presidency College at the Marina. It was found that they had been on that ‘macho’ trip on bus 57 F, from Karanodai to Broadway.
“We think there were at least nine in that gang. When this bus was going over the Mint Bridge, a few of them pulled out huge machetes from their bags screaming in scary excitement. One of them scraped the road with his machete. Their friends of two-wheelers recorded all this on mobile phones to show off and one of the videos landed in social media”, said an eyewitness, requesting anonymity. He said the students in the bus had covered their faces to avoid detection.
However, the video on social media gave away the identity of some of the rowdy students and one of them, Anandha Raj, 18-year-old student of first-year BA (Tamil) was picked up from his Nergundram house. Questioning him led to the identity of eight of his gang, according to police sources.
However, Inspector P. Jawahar of the Washermenpet police station investitating the case, said no arrest has been made yet. “In fact, we have not registered any case and there is no complaint either. We have identified one student and questioning him”, he said, while admitting that police teams have been deployed to pick up the rest of the gang.
Presidency College principal Ravanan has come out with a warning that strict action would be taken against students indulging in such public nuisance and causing risk to others’ lives. But then, such warnings have done little to bring any order on campuses that have turned into rowdy playfields rather than places of learning.
