Violence over CAB issue continues in Bengal for second day
Kolkata,14 December (HS):Violent protests against the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) continued unabated for the second day today in West Bengal as thousands of people,mostly belonging to the minority community,like yesterday set up road blocks on National Highways, set fire on buses and other vehicles,torched government properties and stopped the movements of trains in different stations in several districts, severely disrupting life.
Informing this police here today said since this morning reports of large scale violence and arson were coming in from different parts of the state including those in Malda, Murshidabad,Howrah, Hooghly and Nadia districts when thousands of people,armed with sticks and carrying brickbats,attacked a number of vehicles on the National Highway no 34 and set them on fire after asking the passengers to get down immediately without taking their belongings.
As a result at least 15 buses and several other vehicles were reduced to ashes one after another at various places including near Uluberia, the scene of yesterday’s major violence in Howrah district. Moreover,property and business goods worth more than Rs one crore in those vehicles, were also completely gutted.
in Several other places a number of government buildings were also attacked by the violent mob shouting slogans against the Narendra Modi Government and demanding immediate scrapping of both CAB and NRC.
These apart a number of road blocks were set up on the National Highways in different areas where tyres were burnt to stop the movement of traffic.
Realising that the overall law and situation in the state was fast going out of control because of this senseless and violent protest like those in Assam and Tripura recently, Chief minister Mamata Baanerjee in a televised address here this afternoon urged the people not to resort to any violence and maintain absolute peace and harmony in the state while exercising their right for a ‘democratic protest’.
‘The state government will take stern action against all violation and for damaging government property by anyone on any pretext’, the Chief said in a stern warning to the people.
Earlier yesterday Governor Jagdeep Dhankar also appealed to the people ‘with folded hands’ not to resort to any violence and follow the rule of law. ‘We must all respect the constitution and the decisions taken by the union government’,he said and urged the people to remain calm and did not pay any heed to any rumours.
Several leading intellectuals in the state including well known authors – Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and Abul Bashar, renowned theatre personalities Rudra Prasad Sengupta and Kaushik Sen among others have also appealed for calm though they had so far fallen into deaf ears with reports of more such violence coming in from different parts of the state.
According to South Eastern and Eastern Railways,the movement of several long distance and local trains have come to a halt at different stations under Howrah-Kharagpur and Howrah – Burdwan sections because of violent agitation at Mourigram,Bankra, Adaria, Beldanga and several other stations.
As a result,a number of Up and Down trains including 12245 Howrah-Yesvantpur Duronto Express, 12847 Howrah-Digha Super AC Express Express, 18645 Howrah-Hyderabad East Coast Express, 12814 Tatanagar-Howrah Steel Express Express, 2074 Bhubaneswar-Howrah Janshatabdi Express, 18029 Lokmanya Tilak-Shalimar Express, 12278 Puri-Howrah-Shatabdi Express and 12842 MGR Chennai Central-Howrah Coromondal Express have suffered long detention at different stations en route.
In addition 12 EMU local trains have also been detained and controlled at various stations, Railway sources here today informed
