Over 3,000 irate residents of this north-western township blocked roads with barricades and railway tracks with burning wooden sleepers, throwing both rail and road traffic completely off the gear for most of Wednesday.

Elsewhere, residents indulged in brick-batting with the police.

The residents were responding to an impromptu call for bandh protesting against lack of municipal water supply. What started in Jesal Park spread like wildfire and soon all of the suburb's internal roads including Navghar and Cabin roads were barricaded by residents.

Empty drums, bicycles and boulders piled up on the streets as slogan-shouting residents demanded water. With the strike spilling on the railway tracks, residents placed cement sleepers, parts of overhead equipment on the tracks bringing suburban railway traffic to a standstill between Bhayander and Virar. Trains pliedonly in the Churchgate-Mira Road-Churchgate section.

Over ten fire-brigade personnel and policemen of the Thane rural district and an equal number of residents were injured in the pitched battles that were fought on the railway tracks. A fire engine was set afire and a few other government vehicles damaged by frenzied mob which also pelted stones at the police. Police fired two warning shots in the air and lobbed 15 teargas shells at the protestors.

Seven stone throwers were caught red-handed and detained by the police. Over 200 policemen and 40 officers in riot gear laid siege to the suburb. Two companies of SRPF were also being rushed to the spot.

While the strike began peacefully, things turned ugly by 12.30 pm, especially on the tracks. Though the police, led by area S P Ashok Kamte and SP (Government Railway Police) K Ramchandran, regained control of the area by late evening, the tracks remained out of their grasp.

Office goers, school and college students bore the brunt of demonstration as mostof the students had to go to their respective schools and colleges to appear for examinations.

Train services to Churchgate were restored at 6.25 pm. However, trains to Virar were not running until late evening as the tracks were still hot from the burning sleepers.

Breakaway Sena leader Ganesh Naik who arrived at the scene was booed by the residents. ``Hume bhaashan mat do, ration do'' (Give us ration not speeches), said the crowd.

The mood amongst the residents was discernably belligerent. ``We're sick of taking out morchas and giving memorandums, this seems the only way now,'' shouted one of them.

Though the trouble today took the administration by surprise, the seeds of protest had been sown earlier. First, it was a near-dry Holi celebrated on Tuesday. Then it was the huge advertisements by the state government promising a tanker-free Maharashtra.

``What tanker-free state are they offering? They can't even ensure a tanker-free suburb, just 45 kilometres away from the Mantralaya,'' said an irateNarendra Soneji, general secretary of the Vinayak Nagar Residents Association.

To add to the agony, in the last two days, contractors who supplied water at nearly Rs 400 per tanker, hiked their rates to Rs 1,200.

At 7 am this morning, nearly 80 odd women congregated at Bandwardi near the railway station, squatting on the road and exhorting the public to protest against the tanker lobby, the main suppliers of water to Bhayander.

Coming at a time when there had been no municipal water supply in the last five days, this cut had the residents seething with rage. Last week, the pipe bringing water to Bhayander from Thane had broken eight times, disrupting the water supply.

``We don't even have water to wash off the Holi colours, what else could we do?'' asked Arjun Mehta, a resident. He also complained of the contaminated water supplied through tanker, a sample of which has been kept at the local Shiv Sena office.

Interestingly, almost all corporators of the recently dissolved municipal corporation ownat least one tanker each. The corporation is also believed to have not enough funds to supply nearly 50 million litres of water, recently announced by the State Government. ``Then what are they doing with the nearly Rs. 150 month collected as tax from each resident,'' asked an enraged N M Mehta, who will have to pay Rs. 450 month if he goes in for regular tanker supply. Many societies in the township pay as much as Rs 10,000 a year for regular tanker supply.

Collector Srikant Singh who visited the suburb late evening held a joint meeting with the Additional DG Thane Range R S Sharma and Special IGP (GRP) S Suradkar.

The collector said that the water problem would be solved only after two years, after the completion of a Rs 132-crore pipeline project. He promised to investigate into the alleged sabotage of Bhayander's water pipeline.

Meanwhile, long distance Western Railway trains were severely affected, being held up at various stations. The Amritsar-bound Paschim Express was stranded at Borivli whilethe departure of Ahmedabad passenger train, Saurashtra Janata Express and Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express was delayed.

The Mumbai-bound Ranakpur Express was held up outside Bhayander station, the Ajmer-Mumbai holiday special was stranded at Naigaum station, Mumbai-bound Gujarat Express was halted at Boisar while the Mumbai-bound Paschim Express was stranded at Palghar. The Vadodara-Bandra terminus Sayaji Nagri Express was terminated at Virar and reversed to Vadodara from there.

BMC promises help

Deputy mayor Gopal Shetty, who is also in charge of the BMC's water supply department today announced that the corporation would supply water to the residents of Bhayander who have gone on a strike demanding more water from the Mira-Bhayander Municipal Corporation. ``We will supply water to them at the same rate at which it is supplied in Mumbai,'' he said, adding that this was being done on humanitarian grounds.

The quantity of water to be supplied in future will be decided in a couple of days, he noted,emphasising that as of now, the corporation would supply as much water as was needed by the residents.

n Western Railway services between Churchgate and Virar were restored by 8.30 pm on Wednesday. However, no trains will ply from Bhayander station until Thursday as tracks, cables and signals in the station, extensively damaged, are still under repair.