BMTC conductor forces student off bus over Tamil Aadhaar card

Bengaluru: A 20-year-old college student says a BMTC conductor forced her to get off the bus because her Aadhaar card with the Bengaluru address was in Tamil. 

The third-year BCom student at St Joseph's College of Commerce boarded the bus 290E from Shivajinagar around 11.30 am on Friday to go home to Lingarajapuram. The bus number was KA 57 F 3401. 

But just a short while into the journey, when she produced her Aadhaar card for a free ticket under the Shakti scheme, the conductor said the document was invalid because it had her details in Tamil and not in Kannada. He even suspected that the document was fake. 

The student tried to reason with the conductor, saying it was a genuine Aadhaar card with the Karnataka address in English, too, making her eligible for free travel. However, the conductor did not budge and forced her to get off the bus. She filmed the conversation on her phone. 

The student's father, Ramesh V, said the Aadhaar application was filed from Chennai and they had "no control over the Indian language printed on it". 

"My daughter was born and brought up in Bengaluru, and has all the necessary documents to support this. Just because her Aadhaar was in Tamil, and not in Kannada, the conductor humiliated her," he told DH. "She was out on the road and weeping." 

BMTC Managing Director Ramachandran R said their security and vigilance team had contacted the father for grievance redress. He also promised appropriate steps to educate all conductors about the matter. 

Ramesh said a BMTC official contacted him and asked if he or his daughter wanted to lodge a complaint. Both declined. 

"It wasn't our intention to lodge a complaint against the conductor. We only wanted to sensitise the BMTC. It should issue proper guidelines to the conductors in this regard," he said.