Gujarat: 31 drunkards in a bus unleash terror on coastal highway

RAJKOT: A day after New Year, it’s a common sight to see tipplers returning to Gujarat from Diu being caught in large numbers.
But what was witnessed on Monday night was unprecedented. A group of 31 heavily drunk men returning from the Diu unleashed terror on the Bhavnagar-Somnath coastal highway, smashing bottles on heads of toll tax employees, assaulting cops, home guard jawans and stabbing a villager, late on Monday night.

The mayhem continued for nearly four hours before their bus was intercepted by a team of cops from four police stations at around 2:30am after a high-voltage chase of 50 km.
All those arrested are natives of Bhavnagar city’s Karchaliyapara locality and aged between 19 years to 36 years. They had hired a private bus and gone to Diu for boozing on Monday and started for Bhavnagar in the night.
The high drama started unfolding around 11:30pm at Dudhala toll booth in Amreli district when they refused to pay the toll tax. Some of the men got down from the bus and smashed beer bottles on the heads of employees Aditya Bhupat and Dudha Jirubhai. When two other booth employees - Ranjit and Lalbhai - rushed there, the drunk men attacked the duo with the iron spanner and plier.
After escaping without paying the tax and injuring the employees, they drove towards Bherai village where a railway crossing is located. In the meantime, toll booth employees had already informed the police who got the crossing closed and asked home guard jawans to reach there.
At around 1am, the bus reached the crossing and again some of the men got down seeing that it was closed. They had an altercation with the railway crossing employee and thrashed him. They even slapped and threatened home guard jawan Ajay Gohil who reached there and forced the duo to open the railway crossing.
From there, the bus driver sped towards Visariya village located near the coastal town Rajula where the police had placed trucks to block. A police SUV was also stationed there to intercept the hoodlums.
Close to Rajula, they even stabbed some villager, informed Nirlipt Rai, Amreli district superintendent of police.
“Close to Rajula town, they tried to run their bus over the police van and escaped. Ultimately, the bus was intercepted by teams of Pipavav Marine, Nageshri and Rajula police stations. They were heavily drunk and made all attempts to resist the arrest,” Rai added.
Rai said this is the first time they have arrested such a big group of people returning drunk from Diu.
All have been booked under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code (IPC) including attempt to murder and sections of Prohibition Act.
Police seized several bottles of liquor and beer from the bus.