Lucknow: The transport department on Monday seized a private sleeper bus for carrying 167 passengers against the capacity of 47. Of the 167 passengers, 35 men were caught travelling on the roof of the bus.The overloaded bus (UP11BT0077) was carrying labourers travelling from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, to Patiala in Punjab. The bus entered Gorakhpur through the Kushinagar border and was moving on Purvanchal Expressway. It was checked on Sultanpur Road in Lucknow.The bus was booked by the contractor of the labourers.After the seizure of the bus, passengers were sent to Punjab in three separate buses, including two UPSRTC buses.The cost of transportation for UPSRTC buses will be recovered from the bus owner, said officials.The department has also sought cancellation of the permit of the bus and driving licence of the driver. The bus was registered in Saharanpur Regional Transport Office in the name of one Harpreet Singh.“The people who were inside the bus were in a more pathetic condition as the driver had stuffed them in. We haven’t come across any bus as overloaded as this in quite a few past years,” said RTO Enforcement, Lucknow, Prabhat Pandey.Though it was an AC sleeper bus, AC was not functioning when the bus was intercepted by assistant regional transport officer, Enforcement, Lucknow, Alok Kumar Yadav. It had 10 sleeper cabins and 37 seats.The bus will also be put through technical inspection to find out if it was flouting the norms of the sleeper bus. Meanwhile, the fitness, insurance and pollution-under-control certificates of the bus were found to be valid.“God forbid, if such an overloaded bus meets with an accident, there is no way to ascertain the exact number of casualties. The passengers did not have any tickets. Forget about the victims getting any compensation,” said an official.The maximum punishment for operators in such cases is penalty for overloading under the MV rules, which may not go beyond Rs 50,000.
