A bus driver has been accused of leaving 10 female university students stranded at a mosque along the road between Bisha and Khamis Mushayt because they allegedly did not pay him SR200 for their monthly transport fee. The students from the Bisha College of Education had gone into the mosque to pray Fajr but when they came out the driver drove away from them. Fellow students inside the bus claimed that he would not stop despite their pleas. The incident, according to a local Arabic daily, took place in an area named Atfat Al-Hanafah which is about 25 kilometers from Khaibar center where the students live. The students said they usually perform Fajr prayer at a mosque called Muajab on the road to their college. When they came out of the mosque, they saw the bus moving away. “We shouted at the driver to stop and pick us up but he did not heed our cries or the pleas of our colleagues with him on the bus,” one of them said. She said they were left all by themselves in the mosque after all the worshippers had gone. “We stayed in the deserted place for more than 10 minutes. We were terrified but eventually another bus driver came from Khaibar and took us with him,” she said. Another student said she was worried about her university identification card which was in her purse she left behind in the bus. “We had an examination on the same day and would not be allowed to enter the university without showing the card,” she said. Faisal Al-Johani, the father of one of the students, said he was sick and tired of the behavior of this driver and his conduct toward the female students. “Although the driver is working for a transport company and is paid a monthly salary, he will only take the girls who pay him SR200 every month,” he said. Al-Johani said that when a rumor was circulated that the transport company would not hand over the buses to its drivers on time when the schools reopened after the spring vacation, the driver asked every student to pay him SR700 or else he would not take them with him. “When the buses were given to the drivers, he refused to return the money to a number of parents who had already paid,” he said. Al-Johani said he filed a complaint at the office of the company in Bisha but the office staff refused to accept it and asked him instead to complain to the dean of the college.
