The students who created the ruckus belong to a polytechnic college near Mahudi and commute daily.
Angry that a bus did not come in time, a group of around 100 students went on the rampage at Gandhinagar bus depot of Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) on Tuesday morning. They manhandled the deputy manager of the depot, punctured parked buses and smashed windowpanes.
The students who created the ruckus belong to a polytechnic college near Mahudi and commute daily to and fro. They said that only one bus - Vijapur-Mahudi via Gandhinagar- plies on that route. This bus did not come on Tuesday. Consequently, they could not appear for their internal exam, they claimed.
The students said that the Vijapur-Mahudi bus usually arrives at Gandhinagar depot at 6:30 daily, but somehow it did not come on Tuesday. They added that there is no other bus available to reach their college on time.
After the bus did not come on time, students rushed to the office of the depot manager at around 9:00 am and started arguing with him. A heated exchange ensued and students pulled the assistant depot manager out of his office and manhandled him.
The rampaging students then punctured some buses parked in the depot. Later, they targeted the parcel office on the depot premises and smashed its windowpanes and destroyed furniture inside. Stunned by the behaviour all the employees of GSRTC at the depot ran away from their offices.
Students said their anger was not only because the bus did not come on Tuesday.
"This has been a longstanding problem. Many applications have been submitted to the depot manger to increase the frequency of the bus on that route but nothing has been done yet," they claimed.
Following the incident, GSRTC promised to look into the matter. "We will conduct a survey of all the colleges on all the routes near Gandhinagar and then increase the frequency if needed," said PD Patel, public relations officers (PRO) of GSRTC.
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