The police on Tuesday arrested four college students in Chennai for allegedly damaging an MTC bus in broad daylight. The incident had taken place a few days ago, on February 13, and it has been reported that police were able to identify the miscreants with the help of CCTV footage from the area.
The incident took place when bus route number 27H that plies between Anna Square and Avadi, was stopped by a group of four students at Mannurpet near Ambattur Industrial Estate in Chennai. Infuriated when the bus driver refused to stop the vehicle, the students began attacking its windshields, breaking glass panels.
According to a report in Times of India, the four students belong to Pachaiyappa’s College and their actions were triggered as a result of gang rivalry with Presidency college students. The report also mentions that the students were brandishing swords during the incident.
The arrest was made based on conductor Pallavan’s complaint. The arrested four have been identified as Siva Bharathi, aged 20, Saravanan, aged 20, Gopi, aged 19 from Ayapakkam near Ambattur, and Yuvaraj, aged 20 from Thiruvalangadu in Tiruvallur.
Students belonging to these two colleges share a long history of gang rivalry, often resulting in bouts of public vandalism and display of machismo in public.
In September last year, a shocking video of young men brandishing knives and dragging it across the length of the road while riding an MTC bus made the rounds. The men, believed to be students of Presidency College, were hanging off the footboard of the bus, and were holding billhooks in their hands. The city police arrested four students on charges of rioting later that month.
In January last year, two groups of students, allegedly from Pachaiyappa’s and Presidency colleges in Chennai, vandalised the Pattaravakam railway station in the city, injuring three people and chasing away commuters.
The railway police had arrested Mohan Raghupathy, a final year BSC Botany student of Pachaiyappa’s college in relation to this incident.