Bharat bandh is partial success in Mumbai

The city’s lifeline, the suburban railway was targetted next with activists bringing trains to a halt by squatting on the tracks. But train services were affected only in the morning and returned to normalcy by afternoon.

Seventy Western Railway (WR) and 26 Central Railway (CR) trains were cancelled, and traffic between Virar and Andheri on the western line and Chunabhatti and Kurla on CR was severely disrupted. Several office-goers were forced to turn back before the services were restored.

Most wholesale and retail markets were closed in the bandh which was a complete success in the city’s BJP bastions. Mumbadevi, Khetwadi, Borivli, Kandivli and Malad bore the look of ghost towns with few people on the streets.

Though the VHP’s city president Mohan Salekar claimed the downing of shutters to be a `spontaneous expression of solidarity’ for the people gunned down in Kashmir, it seemed to be a fallout of fear. The city which lived on the edge after rumours of Thackeray’s arrest a fortnight ago, was encouraged to stay indoors by incidents of stone-pelting, rail and rasta rokos.

“Most auto drivers today didn’t ply for fear of their vehicles being attacked,” said Premchand Upadhyay, an auto driver at Kanjurmarg. Taxi union chief AL Quadros claimed a 50 per cent fall in business today.

Nearly 60 activists belonging to the BJP, including former Deputy Mayor Gopal Shetty were arrested while performing a maha-arti at the Omkareshwar Mandir outside Borivli station.

In Vasai, there was a direct clash between Sena and BJP activists. Sena activists opposed to the bandh forced shopkeepers to reopen, which led to a clash with BJP workers.

Sunitha Vijaykumar, a foreign bank employee who was on her way to office, nervously recalls the incident when her rickshaw was pelted with stones on Sahar Road in Andheri. “The rickshaw was just crossing Sahar road, when we heard shouts and stones suddenly came raining down. Our Muslim driver quickly removed his traditional skull cap and hid it below his seat,” says Sunitha, her hands trembling with fear.

VHP activists squatted on the tracks at Goregaon, Malad and Andheri, bringing WR services to a complete halt between 8 am and 11 am. At many stations agitators put sleepers on tracks to halt trains. The Rajdhani Express was detained for 45 minutes at Goregaon.

A rail roko at Goregaon at around 11 am delayed WR services. At many Central Railway stations like Thakurli, Sion, Khadoli and Kasara, trains were detained by agitators between 8 am to 1 pm. Stone-throwing was reported between Chunabhatti and Kurla at 10 am. VHP activists also damaged some stalls at platform number 4 and 5 of Andheri station.

In the north-western suburbs, office-goers faced a problem in the morning even though buses, autorickshaws and private vehicles plied as usual. A few BEST buses were stoned and shops that had opened for business in the morning quickly downed their shutters. Even after train and bus services were resumed around 10.30 am, commuter traffic remained thin till late afternoon.

Dahisar resident Sudhir Patkar was highly inconvenienced when he had to return half-way from Powai at 9 am. “It was very frustrating to start early at six o’clock, be prepared for a day’s work ahead and come back half-way. And to top it all, the railway authorities and police now claim normalcy,” he said.

The Government Railway Police (GRP) arrested over a 100 VHP activists from Andheri and Elphistone. Deputy Commissioner of Police, GRP, TS Bhal was gheraoed by a mob of VHP supporters at Mulund station when he tried to arrest some of them.