After sit-on-lap stir, bus-stand set for make-over

A bus-stand, which hogged the spotlight recently when a bench for waiting commuters was split into three as the local people did not want girls and boys sharing the same seat, was on Friday removed by the authorities here.

The civic authorities removed it two months after Mayor Arya S Rajendran promised to build a gender-neutral bus-stand in the same place at Sreekaryam near the Government College of Engineering-Trivandrum (CET) here.

Rajendran had visited the area in July after photographs of the students protesting by sitting on one another's laps went viral. The Mayor had said in a post later that the manner in which the bench was cut into three was not only "inappropriate" but also "unbecoming of a progressive society" like that of Kerala.

She further said there was no ban on girls and boys sitting together in the State and those who still believe in moral policing were still living in ancient times. The ruling CPI(M)'s youth wing DYFI had also said breaking the bench in the bus-stand was unacceptable.