Police have handed a list of over 300 stretches of key roads across the city to the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, urging immediate repairs, well ahead of the Puja.
The list includes the flyovers in Sealdah, Gariahat and Ultadanga, the Durgapur bridge, Bijon Setu and stretches of Rashbehari Avenue, EM Bypass, Gariahat Road, Ultadanga Main Road, AJC Bose Road, Central Avenue and CIT Road.
“We want these stretches to be repaired before the Puja,” said Arijit Sinha, deputy commissioner, traffic.
Officers at Lalbazar said once the repairs were over, they would identify parking lots near puja pandals that needed to be repaired.
With just about a little more than a month left before the Puja — the five-day festivity starts on October 11 — officers said the repair of these stretches was crucial now.
“Repairs of certain stretches of Rabindra Sarani, Jatindra Mohan Avenue, Nimtala Ghat Street and Mahatma Gandhi Road, for instance, need to be completed at the earliest because a chunk of the vehicles diverted for the demolition of the Vivekananda Road flyover ply down these roads,” said an officer.
20-year-old held for lewd messages
A 20-year-old youth was arrested on Saturday for allegedly sending obscene messages and voice notes to a woman on Instagram, police said.
The accused allegedly told the police that he felt ‘encouraged’ to send the messages after the woman had ‘liked’ one of his photographs on Instagram.
The accused, Mohammad Sameer, is a resident of Ibrahim Road in southwest Kolkata. Around 1am on September 3, Sameer allegedly sent the woman a lewd message. The woman asked him to stop doing so.
“Sameer then started sending voice messages abusing the woman,” said an officer of Ekbalpore police station, where the woman’s family lodged a complaint.