BANGALORE: In an incident somewhat reminiscent of Delhi's Nirbhaya case of Dec 2012, a BMTC driver allegedly pushed a 23-year-old Haryana student out of a moving bus after allegedly molesting and verbally abusing her in the early hours of Friday.

He has since been arrested by police. The driver, on probation, was allegedly drunk when the incident took place. He had also been involved in a similar offence in 2012.

As per the suo motu complaint registered by police, the driver threw the student out of the bus before fleeing from the spot. The girl is undergoing treatment in the ICU at the KIMS hospital for head injuries.

AV Siddartha, 31, a driver-cum-conductor of BMTC Pushpak bus from depot No. 9, has been booked for attempt to murder, wrongful restraint and assault with intent to outrage a woman's modesty. Siddartha, in judicial custody, has been suspended from service by the BMTC. In May 2012, he had been accused of molesting and assaulting a woman inside the traffic and transit management centre in Yeshwantpur.

HS Revanna, deputy commissioner of police (Bangalore South), said the student landed at Bangalore City railway station around midnight from Chandigarh. She went to Kempegowda bus station to catch a bus to her relative's house in Padmanabhanagar, south Bangalore.

There were about 40 people at the bus station then, all headed in the same direction. That is when Siddartha came to the terminal to park the bus after finishing his work of transporting workers to Peenya Industrial Area. Looking at the volume of people, BMTC traffic inspector Puttaraju asked Siddartha to do a special trip on this route. Although BMTC rules state there should be a conductor in every bus, Siddartha was allowed to leave the station without a conductor at 12.30am.

All the passengers, except for the student, got down at the last stop at Banashankari. The victim, who did not know Kannada, told Siddartha that officials at the bus terminal told her she would be dropped near Deve Gowda petrol bunk, off Padmanabhanagar.

Siddartha, however, refused and allegedly turned the bus around and started moving with the girl still inside the bus. The student told police that whenever she asked him to stop, he verbally abused her and tried to touch her inappropriately.

Around 1.30am, the student was allegedly thrown out of the bus by Siddartha at Chamarajpet and he sped away. The girl, who suffered head injuries in the fall, was taken to hospital by a passerby.

The girl did not want to file a police complaint, cops said. She told police officers who went to meet her that she wouldn't lodge a complaint till she consulted her parents. However, she gave police some information on the incident, based on which Siddartha was arrested and sent to judicial custody.