Driver assaulted after school bus grazes private car in Panvel

The incident occurred on Saturday morning when the bus driver, 52-year-old Sudhir Bhagoji More, was in sector 17, Khanda Colony to pick up school students

Navi Mumbai: In a repeat of the road rage incident from last week, when an Audi driver thrashed an Ola cab driver in Ghatkopar over a minor collision with his vehicle, a school bus driver in Panvel was brutally assaulted after his vehicle accidentally grazed an unidentified Wagon R.

Sudhir Bhagoji More

According to the police, the incident occurred on Saturday morning when the bus driver, 52-year-old Sudhir Bhagoji More, was in sector 17, Khanda Colony to pick up school students. A white Wagon R which was driving ahead of the bus suddenly changed lanes, causing the front portion of the bus to graze the car’s rear end and leading to verbal altercation between the two drivers.

“The car driver insisted that I come out of the vehicle. But since the altercation was causing a traffic jam, I urged him to head to Kamothe police station and myself did the same,” More told HT. But the car tailed the bus and overtook it in Kamothe, sector 22, and parked the vehicle right in front of the bus. “The car driver then pulled me out of the bus and thrashed me with a bamboo stick, leading to extensive injuries on my head and legs,” he said.

The bus driver was rushed to MGM Hospital, where he received seven stitches. The assault occurred in the presence of 18 school students who were in the bus and was video recorded by bystanders. It was also recorded on a CCTV camera installed nearby, which showed the car’s registration number as MH04 HF8665.

The Kamothe police station on Saturday registered a case based on More’s complaint under sections 115, 118 (1), 351(2) and 352 of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita. “The driver has been identified and will be arrested at the earliest,” said senior inspector Ajay Kamble, Kamothe police station.