Middle-aged man climbs atop Howrah Bridge; gives cops tough time, disrupts traffic

The police were sent into a tizzy after a middle-aged man climbed up the Howrah Bridge during the morning rush hours on Friday.

All of a sudden, pedestrians on the footpath of the bridge found the man shouting from the top of the bridge.

Hundreds of people gathered to watch the man walking on the iron joints of the bridge above pillar number 38.

The on-duty policemen and traffic sergeants too rushed to the spot and informed the control room. Officers from the fire and emergency services department and city police's disaster management group went to the spot and initiated the rescue work.

They found the man walking on the joints. They had initially asked the man to come down. But he was not ready to follow the directions given by the police and other officers.

Finding no other way out, a jawan of the disaster management group climbed up the pillars and tried to bring the person down. But the man was not ready to use the ladders. So the jawan tied the man with himself and brought him down hanging in a rope as if someone was rescuing the person in a hilly terrain.

Police said that the man was speaking in Bengali. But he couldn't express his feelings clearly as if he was a bit sick. "Only one word that have been made out of what he was saying is Tripura," said a police officer.

He was taken to the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital for necessary treatment. A police officer said that they will speak to him after he recovers and would take steps to send him back to his family members.

The incident led to a traffic congestion on the Howrah Bridge in the morning rush hours. But the traffic police had managed to ensure smooth flow of traffic as early as possible.