Bhopal: Alleged protesters waylaid a passenger bus on the Indore-Bhopal Highway and set it on fire after vandalising it on Wednesday.
This comes a day after police firing killed five people during a farmers’ protest in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur. Violence spread to close to half a dozen districts witnessed unprecedented violence on Thursday.
The incident happened at Sonkatch on the Bhopal-Indore Highway, around 70km from Indore.
According to reports, farmers agitated with the Mandsaur shootout had gathered on the highway. They forced the passenger bus to stop and assaulted the vehicle, which was carrying kids and women at the time, with sticks and bricks, smashing window panes.
Ignoring pleas from the passengers inside, they kept attacking the bus and asked passengers to open the door.
Later, the passenger somehow off the bus and hid in nearby fields while the mob set the bus on fire.
Sources claimed that four chartered buses were intercepted and torched on the highway.
Agitators also torched several vehicles parked inside a police station and also staged violent protests in Dewas.
Close to 20 buses were torched in Bhaurasala by the angry mob. A journalist from national news channel was roughed up in Mandsaur while a Thana-in-Charge was mercilessly beaten up in Suwasra area in the town.
Sandip Soni, SDM and the CEO of Atal Indore City Transport Service Company, which runs a chartered bus service, told media persons that four chartered buses were torched by armed mobs at Sonkatch. Close to 150 passengers had safely de-boarded these buses and took refuge in nearby farms and efforts were on to send them to their respective destinations, he said.
“Other buses of our service have been asked to remain where they are till normalcy returns," he said.
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