Mixed response to Maharashtra bandh; Indrajit Gupta to visit Bombay

Home Minister Indrajit Gupta will visit Bombay on Tuesday to make an on-the-spot assessment of the law and order situation in the metropolis and other parts of Maharashtra following the desecration of Dr B R Ambedkar's statue and the subsequent police firing on Friday which claimed 10 lives.

Gupta will be accompanied by senior home ministry officials during his day-long visit.

In Maharashtra, minor incidents of violence in Nagpur, Kolhapur, Nashik, and Thane marred the otherwise peaceful Maharashtra bandh call given by the Republican Party of India and other Opposition parties on Monday.

The police had to extend a curfew till Tuesday in the dalit-dominated areas of Nagpur while in Karanja-Ghadge in Wardha district, the police had to open fire to disperse a violent mob. However, no casualties were reported.

According to official sources, there were 32 different incidents of violence in Nagpur in which three buses were damaged in stone-pelting and a road blockade was organised at 17 places. The police burst teargas shells on rioters trying to block roads and rob shops and 87 persons were taken into custody.

The bandh had a lesser impact in Bombay with a few incidents of stone pelting at railway property and state transport buses reported from Vikhroli, Kanjur Marg and Tagore Nagar in northeast Bombay. Irate mobs tried to create a tense situation by forcing shopkeepers to close down their shops at some places like Andheri, Santa Cruz and Malad in northwest Bombay .

Normal life in Thane district came to a standstill as suburban train services on Central Railway was paralysed after RPI activists assembled on the tracks near the Thane railway station. Suburban trains were only running from Bombay VT to Kurla station and motormen were being given protection to run the trains, a CR spokesperson said. Stone-throwing on trains was reported from Thane, Ghatkopar, Vidyavihar, Kanjur Marg, Kalyan and Ambernath in the northeastern part of the metropolitan city. Western Railway's services were reportedly normal.

Anticipating trouble after two days of violence following the desecration of Dr B R Ambedkar's statue, educational institutions, business establishments and shops remained shut in various parts of the state.

A mob of about 2,000 people attacked the Kohinoor Technical Institute, owned by Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, in Thane. The mob also attacked the Kohinoor Corner, a hotel next to the institute. Twenty cases of stone-throwing have been reported in the district, though no one has been injured.

Kolhapur observed a bandh for the second successive day on Monday despite the Opposition parties deciding not to participate in the bandh since it had observed one on Sunday.

In the morning, Shiv Sena workers had gone around asking shopkeepers to carry on with normal business; in the afternoon Congressmen went around asking them to down shutters.

Despite Pune and the neighbouring Pimpri-Chinchwad having been spared of Monday's bandh, sporadic cases of stone-pelting marred the peace.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Chief Minister Manohar Joshi called on Governor P C Alexander on Monday.

The chief minister is understood to have apprised the governor on the law and order situation arising out of the tense situation in various parts of the state following the two protest bandhs resulting in a series of violent incidents.

Photographs: Jewella C MIranda

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