Police continued their drive against banned firecrackers on the eve of Diwali by making announcements through loudhailers, checking passengers leaving railway stations and holding last-minute awareness meetings with residents of high-rises.
Banned firecrackers, however, were still being sold and burst in pockets across the city since Wednesday evening.
“It is difficult to completely stop the sale and transportation of firecrackers. We are raiding markets and seizing banned crackers whenever there is specific information,” said an officer at Lalbazar.
All police stations have been instructed to show ‘zero tolerance’ to the sale, transportation and bursting of banned firecrackers, officers said.
Teams from Posta and Girish Park police stations seized 300kg and 5.5kg of banned firecrackers, respectively, on Tuesday.
Lack of clarity on the definition of green (environment-friendly) firecrackers and the Supreme Court’s order allowing use of green firecrackers have left many, including police officers, confused.
“Many people are asking us if they can light up sparklers. It is difficult to ascertain whether a certain firecracker is green or not. There is an app using which we can scan the barcode on a packet and find out whether the crackers inside are green or not, but it is very difficult to implement,” said an officer of the South division.
This newspaper spoke to a number of Kolkatans on Wednesday evening who said they heard firecrackers being burst in their neighbourhoods.
Several residents of Kasba, Lake Town and Salt Lake alleged that the cracker ban was being violated in their areas.
Rama Mukherjee, a resident of Ballygunge, said she heard shells being burst early in the evening.
Kolkata police used loudhailers to make announcements asking people to refrain from buying and bursting banned firecrackers.
Police stations in central and south Kolkata — including Burrabazar, Posta, Alipore, Ballygunge, Shakespeare Sarani and Park Street — held meetings with residents of housing complexes and asked them to strictly enforce the cracker ban in their compounds.
Senior officers at Lalbazar said “very few” complaints of noise norm violation were lodged with their helplines till around 9pm on Wednesday.
Bidhannagar police, too, carried out an awareness campaign against banned firecrackers. Officers of the commissionerate said they had held meetings with the puja organisers.
“We will deploy civic police volunteers in some housing complexes,” an officer said.