Protesters’road rage halts commuters in tracks

Commuters were taken by surprise when they found that supporters of Opposition parties had put up road blockades around 36 locations in the city. Major thoroughfares like Rabindra Sarani-Sovabazar crossing,Gariahat crossing,Howrah Bridge East,Moulali crossing,Raja Bazar crossing,College Street crossing,MG Road-CR Avenue and Sarat Bose Road were among some of the areas which were worse hit by the protests. Office-going commuters were stuck on the city’s roads,in many cases for over an hour and a half.

Those hoping to escape the city roads were caught in the traffic snarls on EM Bypass. Daminee Basu,a school teacher with a private school said she had been stuck at the EM Bypass for over 90 minutes while she was on her way to the school.

“Usually one can hope to skip the city’s traffic jams of city by moving to the bypass,but today it was equally bad here,” said Basu.

In the afternoon,a 40-year-old women committed suicide by jumping in front of a Tollygunge-bound Metro train. A case was later registered with the Hare Street police station.

Train services paralysed
Train services remained paralysed for hours as Congress supporters blocked railway tracks and stations.

While protests at different parts of the state took an ugly turn on Thursday,it was once again the commuters who were at the receiving end. Hundreds of passengers both on main railway stations and the sub-divisions were stranded as many trains had to be either cancelled or rescheduled.

Besides trains running in Eastern Railway Howrah Division and Sealdah Division,including Howrah and Sealdah sub train services,were affected. In the Howrah division,17 EMU trains had to be cancelled,13 EMU trains were detained en route for about one hour and three passenger trains for two hours each on an average. In the Sealdah division,a total of 24 pairs of EMU trains were cancelled on the Sealdah main,Sealdah-Bongaon and Sealdah south sections.

Obstructions by Congress workers took place at important sections like Katwa,

Banshberia,Sahebtala,Basirhat,between Shyamnagar and Ichhapur,Santospur,Hasnabad,Sodepur,Kanchrapara and New Barrackpore among others.

Train services in Howrah-Kharagpur section of South Eastern Railway was affected by obstructions put up by protestors at Bagnan station on Thursday morning. This resulted in disruption of three mail and Express train services like that of Purulia-Howrah,Chennai-Howrah Coromondal express and nine EMU local trains at various stations for five minutes to half-an-hour.