In the recent beating of a 55-year-old man at the Kattakkada bus depot by four Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) employees, the police made their first arrest on Saturday.
Duty guard S R Suresh Kumar was taken into custody at Tirumala by a shadow team working for Kattakada DySP.
Premanan, a Poovachal Panchayat employee, was beaten when he demanded his daughter’s concession card. After Reshma testified that she too was assaulted during the commotion, the Kerala Police changed the charge to a non-bailable offence.
After a brief verbal spat between them, a few workers from the public transportation company shoved Reshma as well.
Four employees’ anticipatory bail request was rejected by the Additional Sessions Court on Friday.
The court stated that anticipatory bail is not appropriate for government employees who physically attacked a man in front of his daughter.
The three other suspects, station master A Mohammed Sherif of the KSRTC Aryanad Unit, conductor N Anil Kumar, and assistant chief police officer Milan Dorich, have fled the scene.
According to the allegations, the police delayed the arrest in order to give the four people—leaders and members of different KSRTC unions—more time to get anticipatory bail.
The accused claimed in the anticipatory bail application that the complainant Premanan was fabricating accusations out of personal animosity. They claimed Premanan and another person had arrived at the depot that day with a camera in order to record the altercation and paint the KSRTC employees as the bad guys.
The video, which circulated on social media, sparked a backlash against the KSRTC staff from the general public.
Biju Prabhakar, the chairman and managing director of KSRTC, described the occurrence as despicable and suspended the four from their jobs.
He also apologised to the public for the way the girl and her father were treated.
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