Night of shame continues……

On reaching the Munirka bus stop, they waited for their bus—number 764—to arrive. After a while, they saw a white bus with yellow and green stripes on its sides approach them and stop right where they stood. It was a private chartered bus—generally not authorized to ply on commercial routes— from which a young boy was calling out for passengers going to Dwarka and Palam Mod. Awindra and Nirbhaya, unsure of when the regular bus would come and anxious to reach their homes before it got too late, decided to board the private bus. Little did they know they had boarded a bus to hell.

As they took their seats they saw three unkempt youngsters sitting in the driver’s cabin with the driver, while two others sat right behind in the front row of passenger seats—one on the left and the other on the right end. There were no other passengers in the bus. Instinctively, the young couple felt that something was not quite right.

One of the two seated in the front passenger seats walked towards Awindra, ostensibly to collect the bus fare. They paid twenty rupees between them. It dawned on them that the bus had not waited for any other passenger to board and had left with only the two of them soon after they had got in. Strangely, the bus had curtains that were all drawn to ensure that nothing outside was visible to them. The door they had come in through had been locked from the inside after they had boarded. The eerie atmosphere soon became outright scary when the lights of the bus were switched off. The two youngsters knew they were in trouble.

As the bus drove towards Dwarka and reached the flyover leading to the airport, the three boys emerged from the driver’s cabin. They began to abuse Awindra, asking him where he was taking the girl so late in the night. On being told by Awindra that it was none of their business, one of them punched him in the face.

To be continued…..