SENDHWA Bus carnage deserves national attention

As published in free press indore edition on 26/08/2011

It was no routine news or accident, it was most brutal and heinous crime against the innocent fellow human beings by few animals of their own species. Just imagine  that you are sitting in a bus with your family, your bus driver gets involved in a fight with another bus staff on the issue of passenger sharing and while you look on , the door of your bus is locked from outside and your bus is set on fire.  Any one of us could have been there. There was no unruly mob, no communal riot, no accident ,no natural disaster but it was just the  internal rivalry of  already infamous private bus mafia that has led to this incident near sendhwa (MP)  where a busfull of passangers were burnt alive inside a locked door bus.

It was really shocking to see the poor coverage and mild reactions of this incident in the press and the media. At the root of the problem , it is the governments’ failure and inefficiency in MP , not to be able to run the state road transport corporation, which is still running efficiently in many states of our country. The harassment of staff and passengers by the private bus mafia on the  government run buses of other states which passes through our state is quite rampant. The government and local administration have no interest or political will to control this high handedness of private bus operators. Everyday on every route the passengers are forced to travel in the ill maintained, uncomfortable buses and are suffering at the hands of private bus owners, and now the sendhwa incident is the climax of brutality.

Surprisingly , our sensitive CM has also not shown the required concern and courage to reach up to the real cause of the incident. He found the single door buses as the culprit not the private bus mafia. He announced a handsome compensation to the victims of the tragic incident but avoided the underlying issues of this incident. I request that public transport policy should be reviewed in the light of this incident. Fast track court should be set up and stringent punishment should be awarded to those who have done such dastardly act. MPSRTC should be revived and all private buses which are in good condition should be taken over (like land acquisition ) and be run by the state.

Some time back an excise inspector was burnt alive by a  petrol pump staff in maharashtra , which sparked a sharp criticism on the oil mafia and central government was deeply shaken to the extent that it seriously thought about  removing direct kerosene subsidy. The incident was mentioned by the finance minister in his budget speech. I wish this incident should also become  an eye opener for government as well as public.

Bharat Sharma

C-44/8 Rishinagar Extension

Ujjain