Student faces FIRs after tiff with conductor, cops in Bengaluru

BENGALURU: An argument over bus pass between a BMTC conductor and an 18-year-old college student ended with the youth facing two First Information Report (FIRs) - one by the conductor for obstructing his duty and another by a Peenya police sub-inspector, who alleged that the teenager attacked him.
Trouble began around 11am when Mounesh, a north Bengaluru resident and student of a private college, boarded a BMTC bus plying between Yelahanka and Yeshwantpur at Gangammanagudi. When conductor Dhanany Murthy asked him to pay for the ticket, Mounesh told the conductor that he had a bus pass.
"I asked him to show the pass and he showed me something on his mobile phone which definitely was not a bus pass. I told him the same and asked him to purchase a ticket. But he refused and started arguing, saying it was indeed a bus pass. Some passengers too looked into it and confirmed that it wasn't a bus pass," Murthy told Peenya police.
As the argument lingered many passengers shouted at Mounesh, asking him to either purchase a ticket or get off the bus. However, Mounesh refused to do either.
"By then, our driver Ashok too shouted at the youth, who abused him back. The bus was filled with abuses as the youth and the other passengers got into heated arguments," Murthy said.
Sensing things were going out of control, driver Ashok took the bus to Peenya police station. Alighting from the vehicle, Murthy and Ashok entered the station and narrated the incident. Two constables came to the bus and took Mounesh inside the station.
"Keeping in mind the age and future of the student, we initially decided to register a non-cognizable-report case against him. But after entering the station he started fighting with us and at one point, punched sub-inspector Siddu Hoogar on the face," police from Peenya station said. By evening, two different cases were booked against Mounesh. The student was booked under section 353 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty).
He was arrested and later released on station bail.