Source: The Sangai Express / Newmai News Network
Imphal, December 18:
In the wake of the alleged highway robbery committed at near Purana Bazar in Dimapur yesterday by unidentified armed miscreant, the All Manipur Inter-State Bus Transport Association has called the attention of the Manipur Government about the safety of passengers and drivers of buses plying along the national highways.
It was reported in an Imphal daily newspaper that the highway robbers had confiscated cash amounting to Rs 40,000, costly items and mobile phones, and identity cards of passengers who were travelling in an inter-state passenger bus headed for Imphal from Guwahati yesterday in the wee hours at around 2 at Purana Bazar in Dimapur, in Nagaland.
The newspaper had reported that unidentified miscreants, numbering around 7-8 armed with AK rifles had robbed a bus that belongs to the Delta Travels bearing number MN-011877.Source from the Delta Travels counter at Imphal identified the owner of the bus as Behari Raj of Mahatma Gandhi Avenue in Imphal.
One SSB CO identified as Y.Chaoba who was coming home from his post at Bariach area in Uttar Pradesh and two others Biaklian, an employee of a Central Agricultural University at Gangtok and VL Gangte, a senior auditor of an army unit located at Bidi Bari in Jammu and Kashmir have been robbed of their identity cards, mobile phones, two Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards and one camera.
The muggers were also assaulting some passengers physically when some of them pleaded to hand back their identity cards.
Condemning the heinous crime committed yesterday at Nagaland, the transporter association president Athokpam Budha Luwang said that this is not the first time when passengers or drivers along the highways are being plundered or assaulted.
He added that the Government has been intimated about the unsecured conditions of both drivers and passengers many times.
No concrete action till now has resulted in the decreases of travellers along the route.