Ashtami in Calcutta witnessed puja revellers hitting the streets in even greater numbers on Sunday than Saturday since early evening with places like Sovabazar, Hatibagan and Shyambazar in the north and Rashbehari Avenue-SP Mukherjee Road crossing, Gariahat, Chetla and New Alipore attracting maximum crowd, police said.
Bowbazar in central Calcutta also emerged as one of the pockets to attract huge crowds with most revellers choosing to walk down the MG Road from Sealdah station to visit pandals in the area.
Nearly 600 motorists, including about 500 in Calcutta and about 100 in Salt Lake, were prosecuted between Saptami night and Ashatmi morning for violating traffic rules, police said.
“Most of the prosecutions were because of helmet-less driving in the early hours of Sunday,” said an officer.
“Except for parts where the pedestrian crossovers have been heavy, traffic has by far moved seamlessly,” said a senior officer of Calcutta police.
Senior officers on puja duty said on Ashtami visitors opted for zones that have a cluster of pujas in close vicinity like the Rashbehari Avenue crossing with puja pandals extending up to Gariahat in the east and New Alipore in the west or Sovabazar with Hatibagan and Nalin Sarkar Street in the east and Kumartuli in the west.
“The pedestrian crossover has been highest in the two parts because of pandal hoppers emerging from Sovabazar and Kalighat metro stations and crossing the roads,” said a senior officer in charge of traffic management.
“Timings of the traffic lights on Central Avenue and Rashbehari Avenue had to be tweaked accordingly.”
Metro Railway ferried 7.95 lakh people in the north-south corridor on Saturday. On Friday, the carrier had ferried 8,00,033 passengers. Kalighat and Dum Dum have been the busiest stations.
An official said that the count crossed eight lakhs after more than four years. The last time Metro carried more than eight lakh passengers was on October 7, 2019.
Mousumi Ghosh, 33, who works in the human resources team of a private bank, is an avid pandal hopper. She visited south Calcutta pujas on Saptami and those in north Calcutta and Salt Lake on Ashtami. On Saptami, Ghosh went out with her sister, brother-in-law and niece. The Chetla resident drives a hatchback. On Sunday, she was accompanied by her school friends. “Many pandals have impressed me. But the Hatibagan Nabin Pally pandal, inspired by Sukumar Roy’s Abol Tabol, has been the top draw,” said Ghosh.
As the evening rolled on senior officers of the rank of deputy police commissioners and assistant police commissioners took charge of different sectors that the city had been split into this time to ensure even better management of both the traffic and the crowd.
A set of senior police officers remained posted in the control room in Lalbazar monitoring the crowd movement with the help of the CCTV cameras on Ashtami evening.