Out in force, cops stay calm

No major incident was reported during the bandh.

Stray incidents of law violation were reported from certain areas, where picketers ransacked public buses. These areas included the AJC Bose Road and Pretoria Street crossing, Palmer Bazar, Lenin Sarani and RR Road crossing, Ganesh Chandra Avenue and the CR Avenue crossing, said Deputy Commissioner (Headquarters) Vinit Goyal.

Two Forward Bloc leaders, Somen Das and Sankar Yadav, were arrested for assaulting Sub-Inspector Prakash Ghosh of the Bowbazar police station, from Behala and the party office in Kolkata, respectively, said the DC HQ.

After yesterday's firing at Dinhata, in which five persons were killed, the government asked the Kolkata Police to not take any extreme measure against anybody during the strike but they were told not to spare any law violators as well.

Before leaving for New Delhi, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee directed Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray to pass on his instructions to the Commissioner of Police Goutam Mohan Chakraborty at Lalbazar, said police sources.

Chakraborty said: “As decided by the government, elaborate police arrangements were made for today's bandh. The Joint CP, additional CP, all DCs, OCs are on duty today.” The Radio Flying Squad, Headquarters Radio Flying Squad and police vans have also been pressed into action, he said.

The police were instructed not to resort to any “trigger-happy measures” like yesterday, said Lalbazar sources.

“We were prepared for any eventuality. But no major incident occurred. A large number of police personnel were deployed through out the city and senior police officers like the DCP, ACP and OCs were asked to keep an eye on their functioning,” said Chakraborty.

On a normal day, out of a total of 26,500 cops, 15,000 do their duty on roads. But today an additional 5,000 policemen were on duty as extra measure, said Goyal.