A video from 2013 shows an employee of bus company Orbit Aviation beating up a traffic cop in Punjab's Sangrur
A video from two years ago that purportedly shows employees of bus company Orbit Aviation beating up a traffic cop on a busy road in Punjab, has gone viral on social media, amid outrage and political protests in the state against Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal's family, which owns the company.
Last week, a 14-year-old girl died after she was molested and then pushed off an Orbit bus. The driver, conductor and cleaner of the bus have been arrested and charged with murder.
While Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who owns Orbit and is the son of the Chief Minister, has pulled the company's buses off the road, opposition parties Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party want action against the Badals of the ruling Akali Dal for what they allege is a reign of terror on roads by staff of Orbit buses.
The video of the policeman Vikramjit Singh being thrashed allegedly by bus staff as people watched was recorded on a mobile phone in Sangrur in 2013. The policeman had reportedly tried to stop the bus driver from driving on the wrong side.
The police booked four Orbit bus employees in the case, but filed a chargesheet more than 18 months later. Trial is still on.
Opposition parties point to more incidents of rash and negligent driving, alleging that there is no fear of reprisal because of the Badal connection.
"There are several cases of violations by the Orbit bus company in the past few years... only if proper action was taken, the Moga incident could have been avoided," said former Punjab chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh of the Congress, who raised the issue in Parliament today.
Also in 2013, a hockey coach from Patiala was left handicapped, after he was hit by an Orbit bus near Sirhind. The police initially named Orbit in its first information report or FIR, but removed it later from the chargesheet, the former coach Hardev Singh said, adding, "I am still fighting for justice."