Ex-corporator, hubby booked for assault in Pune

PUNE: A former corporator (54), her husband and two others were booked on the charge of kicking and punching a PMPML bus driver and hitting him on the head with a cement paver block following a quarrel after the bus hit her car from behind at Puram Chowk on Tilak Road around 8.45am on Wednesday.
The case was registered on the basis of a complaint by the bus driver, Shashank Deshmane (52). But the former corporator too has lodged a cross-complaint accusing Deshmane of assaulting her driver with a stone, besides abusing and outraging her modesty.
Deshmane did not respond to TOI's queries on Thursday, while the former corporator said: "The police are investigating the case and I would not like to comment as of now."
The bus was ferrying passengers from Swargate to Shivajinagar when it hit the car that had stopped at the Puram Chowk signal, an officer from the Swargate police said.
Deshmane alleged that the former corporator and three others got off the car and started assaulting him, and one of them hit him on the head with a cement paver block.
On her part, the former corporator also said she got down from the car along with three others. They were assessing the damage to her car when the bus driver abused and assaulted her driver with a stone, she said.
Senior inspector Ashok Indalkar of Swargate police said: "We have registered cross complaints. The bus driver is injured and is admitted to a hospital while the driver of the other party is also injured."
Indalkar said the police will investigate the entire incident and make arrests in both cases if needed. "Several bus passengers and passersby have filmed the entire incident on their mobile phone cameras," he said. "We have obtained some video clips and it will be treated as evidence in the case."
Indalkar added that the corporator, her husband and their friend were going to attend the 10th day ritual of a person who had died when the accident took place.