Life affected in Bengal following bandh call

Kolkata, Mar 16 (UNI) Life came to a grinding halt today following the Opposition-sponsored statewide dawn-to-dusk bandh to protest the police firing at Nandigram in which 14 people were killed.

Inspector General of Police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia said barring a few stray incidents, no major untoward incident had been reported so far from any part of the state.

While the Trinamool Congress, Congress and the SUCI gave separate calls for a 12-hour bandh, the BJP called for a 24-hour statewide bandh, protesting the police firing at Nandigram on March 14 and demanding resignation of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

The other Opposition CPI(ML-Liberation) had extended support to the bandh call.

While shops and markets remained closed in most parts of the state, train services at Howrah and Sealdah divisons of Eastern Railway were disrupted as bandh activists squatted on the tracks.

However, Metro Railway services had started plying since morning.

Most of the vehicles also went off the roads.

Official sources said a government bus was set on fire by some unidentified miscreants near Sealdah, while bandh supporters pelted stones, damaging government vehicles, at few other places.

Altogether 14 people were kiled in police firing at Nandigram when the police faced resistance from villagers, where the entire area lay isolated from rest of the state because of anti-land acquisition movement by the Bhumi Uchhed Protirodh Committee, a local platform of Opposition parties.

UNI