Forty-seven students of the National Craft Institute in Rawang, Selangor, have been left stranded at a surau in Kuala Terengganu after the driver of their bus allegedly insisted on extra payment for carrying three additional passengers.

The students were forced to alight from the bus at the surau at 3am today after the driver refused to continue the trip to Rawang, insisting that he be paid RM300 for the additional three passengers.

"After we had passed the hat around and collected the RM300, the driver asked for RM500 more and then RM1,000 in all. We could not come up with such a large sum of money and he dropped us off at the surau at about 3am," said a student, Nur Shusaida Ahmad, 19, when met at the Syed Saqaf Surau in Kuala Terengganu.

The students had gone back to their homes for the Aidilfitri on Sept 8 and were to have returned to the institute in Rawang today.

Nur Shusaida said the students had paid RM94 per person for the return trip and had been transported in two buses from Rawang to Kota Bharu and Kuala Terengganu, respectively.

"As the number of students was small (47 only), the transport organiser provided only one bus for the return trip," she said.

Another student Nurul Azima Jusoh, 18, said the bus was supposed to have picked up several of the students in Kota Bharu at 9pm yesterday but only arrived there at midnight.

The driver gave the excuse that the vehicle had a punctured tyre in Merapoh, Pahang, on the way to Kelantan, she said.

"Besides demanding the extra money, the driver used abusive language on us," she added.

A student's father Jusoh Endut, 51, said he was disappointed over what had happened.

He said several parents had sought the assistance of the Terengganu state secretariat to provide a bus to transport the students to Rawang, hopefully by tonight.

- Bernama