Bus crew ensure safe journey for woman

Pallavi Dubey | NT

Bengaluru: The city may not be safe for single woman travelling during night, but the crew of BMTC Vayu Vajra (KA 57 F1 760), driver Girish and conductor Ramesh Babu, deserves praise for their exemplary behaviour in ensuring that a woman passenger returning from Bengaluru International Airport reached home safely.

The woman had boarded the bus at 1 am at BIAL on Monday and she got down at Warrior Bakery, Rajaji Nagar at 1:30 am. She had booked a cab for the onward journey to her house, but it had failed to arrive on time. The bus driver chose to wait for the cab to arrive, before leaving the stop.

Girish told News Trail, “As we were provided with certain guidelines which clearly stated to make female passengers, elderly passengers to feel comfortable and safe and also to take every possible step in protecting them as their safety is paramount to us. Apart from training also, it is a set of ideas and values which every citizen should imbibe; hence it was just a part of our duty of being a better citizen and proving the people wrong that not every driver and conductors are bad. There still are some exceptions.’’

“We routinely help women travelers every day because during the night it is difficult to get a cab. So we will wait for some time at the bus stop and make sure that woman passengers get into the cab safely. So on Monday also we waited for two different places for 10 minutes each, one is at Hebbal and the other is in Warrior Bakery. Usually we take a flyover at Warrior Bakery, but as the woman passenger was alone, we took the normal road that night and waited for some time till she got into a cab,” said Ramesh Babu. They both are attached to Bus Depot 13.

Some other women also shared their pleasant experience while coming home from the airport at odd hours with News Trail. “‘This is the only reason why I like the Bengaluru most, as I still remember when I was traveling from the airport without cash, still, the drivers and conductors were very cooperative. They stopped the bus and waited for me to withdraw the cash at nearby ATM,” shared Ummi Aiman.