For second day in a row, rally pain hits commuters east, west, centre

Kolkata: For the second day in a row, twin protests against new Waqf law and school job loss again disrupted traffic in large parts of Kolkata as well as Salt Lake on Friday, leaving thousands of commuters — office-goers, schoolchildren and shoppers — stranded on roads.
Among those worst affected were yet again students trying to return home and train passengers heading to Howrah and Sealdah stations. Some central Kolkata schools, such as Calcutta Girls', opted for an early dispersal to avoid students' inconvenience.
Certain roads in Salt Lake and eastern parts of the city were clogged as a large group of protesting teachers gathered at Karunamoyee from 11.30am. By noon, police shut the road between Karunamoyee and Sector V. By 12.30 pm, vehicles came to a standstill in the entire area near Karunamoyee for 15 minutes as the protesting teachers marched 700m to the SSC office, shouting slogans. They then sat down on the road, blocking both the flanks. Traffic movement on Third Avenue, between Sector V and Karunamoyee, could not be restored to the normal state till evening.
"It takes less than an hour to travel between Howrah and Karunamoyee but on Friday, I spent one hour and 45 minutes to reach. Buses were diverted from one route to another. As I am not too familiar with the roads, I lost my way to the PF office at Karunamoyee," said Subhas Gupta, a private firm employee from Kharagpur.
Vehicles headed to Salt Lake and Ultadanga from Sector V and New Town were diverted to the JK Saha bridge at the Wipro crossing and onto the road along the canal. The vehicles took smaller roads inside the blocks to skirt Karunamoyee. Vehicles headed towards Sector V and New Town from Karunamoyee were diverted through CK Block and were guided towards Salt Lake Bypass from AL and BL blocks. "While returning from Sector V, my daughter and I had to walk from Wipro crossing till Karunamoyee in the harsh sun," said Sonali Dey, a homemaker in Baisakhi, Salt Lake.
Central Kolkata saw a repeat of Thursday's jams. Waqf protests at Park Circus, Entally, Chitpore and Esplanade led to disruptions for 15-20 minutes at every major crossing in the area. Several commuters were seen alighting from buses on SN Banerjee road and BB Ganguly Street and walking ahead. The disruptions at Park Citcus Seven-Point Crossing, where Aliah University students took out a rally, lasted for around 45 minutes. A 30-minute disruption was reported with a rally marching from Ananda Palit Road to Lenin Sarani around the same time. "Protests and rallies are part of democracy but commute becomes difficult," said Ardhendu Bandyopadhyay, a bank employee, who was stranded at Park Circus.
Later, BJP supporters blocked SN Banerjee Road to protest against a bus driver being "forced" to take down a religious flag from his vehicle on Wednesday. The CPI(ML), too, led a procession on RR Avenue to show their solidarity with teachers. This blocked access to Esplanade from Dorina crossing, choking Bowbazar, Lalbazar and Dalhousie. The twin rallies in central Kolkata from around 4 pm led to jams for the next couple of hours.
Police dicerted vehicles through almost all roads in the Dalhousie-Bowbazar and Entally-Park Circus areas.
Police said multiple rallies were lined up in central, north and southeast Kolkata on Saturday as well.
(Inputs from Mayukh Sengupta, Indranil Das and Biplab Bhattacharjee)