No women bus crew on four Chennai routes

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Chennai: Metropolitan Transport Corporation has decided not to post women conductors on buses plying on four routes including the Marina beach stretch.
A few students had allegedly misbehaved with a woman conductor and did not allow her to discharge her duty forcing  authorities to withdraw all women crew members from buses cros­sing the Marina stretch. In other incidents, a group of students on Thursday hijacked a bus (No. 6D) on beach road leaving passengers stranded.
Sources in the transport department told DC that the decision was made taking into account the safety of women bus crew members as suggested by Chennai city police. “The police suggested not to post women conductors on four routes dotted by colleges and notorious for unruly behaviour of youngsters,” said a senior government source.
According to a senior official, MTC authorities have stopped assigning duties on a few suggested routes. “We have stopped sending women conductors on our buses on four routes including, Kamarajar salai (beach road), Poonamallee high road and Anna Salai, considering their safety,” he said.
The police put forth the suggestion following a horrific experience of a woman conductor who was allegedly groped by a group pretending to be students a few weeks ago. “They always travel as gang so that they can take on any opposition from  passengers, bus crew or even the police,” said a conductor of a bus running on Kamarajar Salai route.
On Thursday,  a group of students gave a tough time to police and passengers on Kamarajar Salai when they hijacked the bus on Thursday morning.
They removed the route board of a ‘6D’ bus near the secretariat forcing the bus to stop. Alerted by a motorists, traffic police who waited near Napier Bridge were shocked to see students dancing on the road with bus route board in their hands.