SRINAGAR: In a new twist to the tale of striking transporters, a bus went up in smoke in the afternoon in the Batamaloo bus stand. There were no loss of life and the fire fighters made a delayed entry to control the fire from escalation.
Big bus owners are on strike against the transfer of the bus terminal from Batamaloo to Parimpora for nearly a fortnight now. They have their buses parked in the Batamaloo stand for last many days as the owners are sitting on strike in the same premises. Authorities have tried their level best to make the bus stand unusable by creating pits and digging holes.
The bus JKO2AE-0548 went up in smoke at 11 am when the protests were going on. The bus belongs to Mushtaq Ahmad Lisa, the Chairman of the Kashmir Transporters Welfare Association. Members of the transporters association see the destruction of one of the buses as a conspiracy aimed at pressurising bus owners to abide by what government said.
Police said they have registered an FIR and the case will be investigated. An 8-minute video uploaded on the social networking websites details the incident.
The fire fighters which reached when the bus was almost in the last stage of its destruction started operations amid massive sloganeering by the transporters. They controlled the fire within three minutes. The fire service is headquartered at half a minute drive from the bus stand.
