A procession by tribal outfits shut down the Howrah bridge during the morning rush hours and paralysed traffic in large parts of Calcutta on Friday.
Commuters who remained stuck in snarls on the way to work or study said there was little police effort to restrict the march to one side of the thoroughfare or regulate their movement.
The traffic choker again turned the spotlight on Calcutta police’s inability to effectively communicate to people the possibility of such widespread disruption in advance.
Several police officers Metro spoke to admitted a “lapse” in the assessment of the turnout in the rally that stalled traffic from the Howrah bridge to Esplanade.
“The number of people who participated in the rally turned out to be a lot more than what was formally declared. We had adequate arrangements but the rallyists were not ready to cooperate at all. We could not use force to prevent a major law and order disruption in the heart of the city,” an IPS officer in Calcutta police said.
The members of the United Forum of All Adibasi Organisations stage a protest rally on Rani Rassmoni Road on Friday afternoon
Traffic on the Howrah bridge, Central Avenue, Ganesh Chandra Avenue, Lenin Sarani, Chowringhee Road, Red Road, BB Ganguly Street, Mayo Road, AJC Bose Road and Park Street and at the Esplanade crossing was the hardest hit.
The paralysis set in around 8.30am, when the first marchers descended on the Howrah bridge.
Hundreds of men and women queued in two lines and walked through the bridge. They wore traditional tribal costumes and carried their weapons.
The rallyists occupied almost the entire width of the bridge before spilling onto Brabourne Road and Strand Road.
If a pedestrian tried to break through the line attempting to cross the road, he or she was shoved and sidelined.
The members of the United Forum of All Adibasi Organisations stage a protest rally on Rani Rassmoni Road on Friday afternoon
Traffic movement became normal on the Howrah bridge only around 3pm, the police said. Rani Rashmoni Avenue was opened to traffic at 7pm.
Calcutta traffic police had posted an alert about the scheduled rally at 1.26am on Friday on their X (formerly Twitter) handle and on its Facebook page around the same time.
The alert on Calcutta traffic police’s Facebook page only mentioned of a “rally and mass demonstration” on RR Avenue, where people were expected to gather from Howrah station, Sealdah station and Chitpore station.
When tens of thousands of people remained stranded on the roads, they had no inkling or communication from the police about when normal weekday traffic would resume.
The members of the United Forum of All Adibasi Organisations stage a protest rally on Rani Rassmoni Road on Friday afternoon
A commuter who follows the police’s traffic alerts daily asked how one was expected to understand the “magnitude of disruption” if there was no specific alert about the roads that were to be affected.
“Alerts about traffic restrictions are issued separately when a major traffic disruption is expected, as in the case of July 21 rally or a Brigade rally. But there was no such mention on any of the social media pages. There was just a mention about a rally that would commence at 10am and terminate on Rani Rashmoni Avenue,” said a resident of Girish Park, who was stuck on his way to his office in Ballygunge.
Smaller than the ones from Howrah, there were separate rallies from Sealdah and other places, too.
The rallyists had assembled under the banner of the United Forum of All Adibasi Organisations, an alliance of “tribal social organisations for constitutional rights”.
Their charter of demands said: “Stop illegal and unethical effort to include non-Tribe Kshatriva Kurmi/Mahato (who are actually belonging to General Category community) community in the Scheduled Tribe list of West Bengal with political interest; revoke the proposed Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill; introduce and pass an Anti-UCC Bill in the Bengal Assembly for eventual submission to the Government of India as Kerala Assembly has done.”
A senior police officer expressed “helplessness” when asked why rallyists were not forced to let vehicles pass as they marched.
Two incidents of scuffling between rallyists and pedestrians were reported on Lalbazar Street and Canning Street. Pedestrians who were waiting along the road had tried to move through the rally but failed.
At one point in time, when the head of the rally had reached Rani Rashmoni Avenue, the tail was still on the Howrah bridge. A senior Calcutta police officer said: “We had tried to break the rally into multiple segments with ropes but they refused to break the queue and marched without allowing any vehicular or pedestrian movement in between.”
An angry commuter took to social media and wrote: “Just seen an update from Calcutta traffic police that Howrah bridge probably be closed for some procession, but I need to understand is this the right way to treat the normal people where people travel from a long distance to attend their workplace on time...”
She added: “If the management informs this prior one day at least, it would be better for us to plan the day accordingly.”
Two incidents of scuffling between rallyists and pedestrians were reported from Lalbazar Street and Canning Street.
At one point in time, when the head of a rally had reached Rani Rashmoni Avenue, the tail was on the Howrah bridge. A police officer said: “We had tried to break the rally into segments with ropes, but they refused to break the queue and marched without allowing any vehicular or pedestrian movement in between.”
An angry commuter took to social media and wrote: “Just seen an update from Calcutta traffic police that Howrah bridge probably be closed for some procession, but I need to understand is this the right way to treat the normal people where people travel from a long distance to attend their workplace on time....”