The two speeding buses that were forced to stop by the passengers. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

About 50 passengers of two racing private buses forced the drivers to pull up and beat them up near the Maniktala crossing on Sunday afternoon. The drivers were arrested.

The buses, plying on routes 71 and 79D and moving towards Howrah and Babughat, respectively, started racing near the Kankurgachhi crossing, said the passengers.

“Both buses were being driven at breakneck speed. It was very scary,” said Swapan Kumar Pramanik, who was going to Howrah with his wife and two children to attend a relative’s wedding.

The bus on route 71 braked hard on Maniktala Road, flinging the children from their seats. “They sustained injuries on their hands and started crying. There were about 25 of us on the bus. Most of us requested the driver to stop speeding but he would not listen. The conductors, too, did not pay any heed to us,” added Pramanik.

The 30-odd passengers on the 79D were also asking their driver to slow down, but in vain. The bus was racing in double file with the 71 down the narrow flank of the road. “The conductors barked at us to keep shut. That was just too much. Some passengers got up from their seats, grabbed the conductors by their collars and asked them to stop the bus. Afraid that the passengers might beat up the conductors, the driver pulled up near the Maniktala crossing,” said Arindam Sinha, who was on the 79D.

Within minutes, passengers of the other bus had forced it to pull up. Both sets of passengers got off the vehicles, dragged the drivers out of their cabins and beat them up. A police patrol reached the spot and detained the drivers, identified as Swapan Kotal and Rabi Ghose.

They were handed over to a team from Narkeldanga police station. The duo have been booked for rash and negligent driving, said an officer.