Uneasy calm prevails in Baduria

An uneasy calm prevailed in vast areas surrounding Baduria where clashes between two communities took place on Sunday night.

Most shops were closed today with the BSF jawans conducting route march. All the schools and colleges remained closed with most of the people preferring to stay indoors.The police did not allow any gathering of people in congested areas, market places and requested them to disperse. The police urged people not to get swayed away by rumours and informed them throughout the day through public address systems that the person who had uploaded a comment on the Facebook hurting the feeling of a community has been arrested. They also urged people to maintain communal peace and harmony and restore normalcy in the area.

Meanwhile, local people said that they want peace and communal harmony. Chand Bibi, a resident of Baduria said: "We want peace and violence should stop. She urged people from all communities to behave sensibly to restore peace in the area."

Sishir Bandyopadhyay, a resident of Berachapa said: "The people belonging to different communities have been living peacefully and happily for generations and those trying to destabilise society should be arrested immediately."

Train services on Barasat – Hasnabad and Barasat – Bongaon sections of Eastern Railway's Sealdah Division, were disrupted for four and a half hours on Wednesday from 9.27 am due to public obstructions at different stations on non-railway cause.

On the Barasat – Hasnabad section, obstructions were made between Champapukur — Basirhat from 9.27 am to 9.58 am. On the Barasat – Bongaon section, public obstructed railway tracks at Duttapukur station from 8.30 am to 14.00 am at level crossing gate number 26 between Asoknagar and Guma stations from 9.45 am to 11.25 am and at level crossing gate number 23T at Guma station from 10.55 am to 13.25 pm. Later, normal train services resumed on both Barasat – Hasnabad and Barasat – Bongaon sections.

As a consequence of the disruption of train services, 19 pairs of EMU locals had to be cancelled and seven EMU locals were detained enroute for about two and a half hours each on an average.