Tension prevailed here on Monday after a Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) bus was allegedly set on fire by miscreants while it was parked on the Thiruchengode-Namakkal road.
Police were said to have already arrested several persons in this connection. They suspected the involvement of members of the Adhi Thamilar Peravai, who recently staged a protest in front of the Collectorate, demanding a CB-CID probe into the alleged suicide of a Dalit girl student at the Vivekanandha College of Engineering, on September 2.
The bus (TN49 N 1870), on its way from Edappadi in Salem to Kumbakonam, was parked on the road side at Ayyampalayam near the Nallipalayam police station in the afternoon, after it broke down.
“Some unidentified persons are believed to have reached the spot in an omni van. They then poured petrol (on the rear side of the bus), set it on fire and escaped. The incident occurred around 3 pm. It is purely an act of sabotage,” a senior police official told Express. He said police reached the spot within minutes, based on information from an alert man. It took firemen around half-an-hour to douse the flames.
Bus driver K Rajapandian said the crew saw smoke billowing from the back side of the bus, even as a mechanic was working on the engine.
He noted that there were no causalities as the passengers alighted soon after the bus broke down.
However, sources said the bus crew was having food, far away from where the vehicle was parked, when the miscreants set fire to it and subsequently drove off.
Police were now trying to trace the omni van used by them.
“We have got the registration number of the van,” the police official said.
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