School bus driver using bamboo stick as gear hits car, held
Mumbai, Feb 7: A 22-year-old driver, who was operating a bus using a bamboo stick as gear lever, was arrested after his vehicle carrying school students hit a car in Mumbai, a police official said on Thursday.
No injury or casualty was reported in the mishap.
Raj Kumar was driving the bus to Podar International School located in Khar suburb on Wednesday when the vehicle hit the high-end car of a businessman, the official said.
The angry businessman then confronted the driver for causing damage to his car.
When two policemen arrived at the spot, Kumar blamed the steering wheel of his bus for the mishap, he said.
The car owner and the policemen then went inside the bus and they were shocked to see the bamboo stick in place of the gear lever, he said.
Kumar, who was subsequently arrested for negligent driving, told the police that the bus gear knob had broken some days back and since then he was using the bamboo stick as gear lever, the official said.
"All the students inside the bus were safe," he said.
The driver was later produced in a local court which granted him bail, he said, adding that a probe was underway into the incident.
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Congress cites Maniben Patel's diary entries, asks Rajnath to apologise for Babri claim
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Saturday shared diary entries of Vallabhbhai Patel's daughter from a book to rebut Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's claim that India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, wanted to build the Babri masjid using public funds, and demanded that Singh apologise for spreading "falsehoods".
Congress general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, claimed the defence minister was spreading falsehoods to “improve his relationship” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Here is Maniben's original diary entry in Gujarati on pages 212-213 in the book ‘Samarpit Padchhayo Sardarno’ by CA R S Patel 'Aaresh', published by Sardar Patel Vallabhbhai Patel Memorial Society, 2025,” Ramesh said on X, sharing screenshots of the relevant pages from the book.
“There is a huge difference between what is contained in the original diary entry and what Rajnath Singh ji and his fellow ‘distorians’ are propagating,” Ramesh said.
“The Defence Minister must apologise for the falsehoods he is spreading, simply to improve his relationship with the PM,” he claimed.
The Congress had earlier termed Singh's claim that Nehru wanted to build the Babri masjid using public funds a “lie” and “WhatsApp university story”, and said the defence minister should not walk in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's path.
Addressing a gathering at Sadhli village in Gujarat's Vadodara district last Tuesday, Singh said Nehru wanted to build the Babri masjid using public funds, but Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel didn't allow his plans to succeed.
The BJP had cited a book by Vallabhbhai Patel's daughter to double down on Singh's claims, and said the first prime minister also said he felt "repelled" by some of the temples in south India despite their beauty.
“The source of what Rajnath Singh said is the 'Inside Story of Sardar Patel, Diary of Maniben Patel'," BJP Rajya Sabha MP and national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi had said at a press conference at the party headquarters while responding to media queries on the issue.
Trivedi claimed that on Page 24 of the book, it is written that Nehru also raised the question of the Babri mosque, but Sardar Patel made it clear that the government could not spend any money on building a mosque.
