BJP Nabanna march mayhem shuts down Kolkata, Howrah pockets for 5 hours

KOLKATA: Thousands of BJP supporters clashed with more than 6,500 cops, spreading terror and shutting down large swathes of Kolkata and Howrah for over five hours on Tuesday afternoon in an unsuccessful attempt to get close to the state secretariat of Nabanna.

Fifty-six policemen and eight BJP leaders, including Swapan Dasgupta and Meena Devi Purohit, were injured as both sides came face to face several times at multiple points - the MG Road-Lalbazar-Burrabazar zone, Hastings, Santragachhi and Howrah Maidan - from 12.30pm to 5.45pm.
Reserved Force assistant commissioner Debjit Chatterjee was admitted to the SSKM Hospital ICU with a fractured arm and a ruptured eye socket after BJP workers armed with uprooted pavement blocks, sticks and iron rods attacked him and other officers at the Rabindra Sarani-MG Road crossing. Several other officials, including the Jagachha police station officer-in-charge, were injured as well.
Rallyists also set ablaze a police vehicle on MG Road, which was one of the BJP's planned routes to Nabanna (from College Square), as shoppers and shop owners ran for cover.
State BJP leaders Sukanta Majumdar, Dilip Ghosh, Suvendu Adhikari, Locket Chatterjee and Agnimitra Paul were detained and 90 BJP workers arrested as cops pulled out all stops to stop their progress towards Nabanna. Besides water cannons and tear gas, cops also used semi-permanent barricades - grouted in the tarmac with the help of concrete and tree trunks - for the first time.
But the situation took several hours to return to normal as BJP leaders spoke in different voices over the end of the programme, confusing supporters. BJP national vice-president Ghosh signalled the end of the march around 3pm in Kolkata after slamming "the police excesses" but, a few minutes later, state BJP president Majumdar said at Howrah Maidan that the decision to call off the march was Ghosh's "personal decision". The BJP had called the rally to protest against "state government and Trinamool corruption".
Cops successfully blocked the rallies from reaching Nabanna but BJP workers vented their frustration on Kolkata's MG Road-Burrabazar-Lalbazar central business district.
Free-for-all at unplanned march towards Lalbazar
An unplanned foray by BJP workers towards Lalbazar ended in scuffles and fisticuffs between cops and about a hundred BJP workers; the burning of the police vehicle happened here and it was followed by several minutes of mayhem in which several businesses and properties were damaged.
Santragachhi in Howrah was the other major conflagration point as rallyists, stopped from moving towards Nabanna, played a cat-and-mouse game with cops for over three hours from 1 pm. BJP supporters first tried to break through a three-layer police cordon near the railway station. Cops pushed them back with water-cannon charges but rallyists, after retreating for some time, came back armed with bricks picked up from along the highway and stone chips picked up from railway tracks as well as glass bottles and bamboo shafts. This was repeated several times, with cops using water cannons and tear gas and BJP workers pushing them back with projectiles.
Rallyists from some of these points, including a large group from Howrah Maidan, reached the vicinity of the Howrah station around 4 pm. Another group, comprising BJP supporters who had vandalised the Lalbazar area and those returning from Howrah bridge, blocked Central Avenue for some time to press for their leaders' release. The crowd at Hastings, led by assembly opposition leader Adhikari, dispersed relatively quickly. There were some moments of tension as Suvendu Adhikari tried to ward off female cops. "Don't touch my body. I am male, you are a lady," he said as cops closed in on him, forced him into a police van and took him to Lalbazar.