Men with toy gun chase school bus in Haryana's Gurugram, nabbed

The suspects allegedly planned to forcibly pull a student out of the bus, but the driver drove to a police post, averting the assault.

Four men were arrested from Gurugram on Tuesday for allegedly intercepting a school bus on the Delhi-Jaipur expressway near Signature Tower and terrorising its driver with a toy pistol in an attempt to pull out a Class XII student to assault him over a petty dispute, police said.

The four apprehended accused. (HT)

The accused were identified as Pankaj Kumar, 23; Neeraj Kumar, 20; and Prince, 20, all residents of Badshahpur; and Himanshu Kumar, 22, a resident of Sector 49, police said.

According to the officers, the suspects were travelling in two Toyota Fortuner SUVs, one of which had a flag of a political party affixed to it, and intercepted the school bus between 1 PM and 2 PM on Monday near Signature Tower. The bus belonged to a reputed school in Sector 49 and was ferrying students home.

According to police, the suspects were armed with a toy pistol and wooden bats and had planned to forcibly pull out a Class XII student from the bus to assault him. Investigators said the plan was motivated by a dispute between the student and a classmate, who is the brother of the accused, Neeraj Kumar.

Bus driver Parveen Kumar, 25, showed presence of mind and accelerated the vehicle, stopping only at a traffic police post for help, according to officers. Police said the bus, along with the students, was then escorted to the Civil Lines police station under security. The driver alleged that the suspects opened fire, but police later confirmed the sound came from a toy pistol.

Commuters travelling behind the bus recorded videos showing the suspects chasing the bus and attempting to stop it on the expressway. Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said Neeraj’s brother had been involved in a dispute with his classmate for the past six months. “After Neeraj came to know about his brother’s dispute, he and his three associates decided to teach the other student a lesson and thus planned to intercept the school bus in which he travelled every day, but failed,” he said.

Turan said the victim’s father later submitted a written complaint, following which an FIR was registered under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at Civil Lines police station on Monday. “The school was alerted about the incident, following which its administration arranged a different bus that took students to their respective homes from the police station on Monday,” he said.

Investigators said the two Fortuner vehicles, the toy pistols and a wooden bat used in the incident were recovered from the accused.