Sushant Banerjee and his sister Parinita wanted to make the most of the last Sunday before Durga Puja. The Jamshedpur siblings rode to the city's shopping hub in Sakchi, parked their bike along Straight Mile Road and went on a buy-buy binge.
A few hours later, when the Mango residents finished shopping, they found their two-wheeler gone. Sushant had to walk over a kilometre to Sakchi thana, spend an hour reasoning with cops that he was unaware of parking rules and later paid Rs 70 as penalty to get his bike back.
Alok Chowdhury of Kadma too went to Sakchi for a last-minute shopping spree, but the 42-year-old had to return home empty-handed - wife Puspita disappointed on pillion - because traffic police didn't allow them to park on the main road while the designated parking lot inside the market was choc-a-bloc.
Like the Banerjees and the Chowdhurys, scores of others were left sulking because the traffic guardians took their job seriously for once.
Unlike Bistupur, there is only one designated parking lot in Sakchi. The Super Centre, as it is called, can accomodate only 90 cars and 200 bikes while more than 2,000 four- and two-wheeler owners throng markets in the run-up to festivities. Left with little choice, people station their vehicles along roads.
"Prosecuting without creating parking space is sheer harassment," fumed Sushant, a software engineer working in Bangalore and home for Puja.
Chowdhury stressed that the crackdown, if it continued all week, would mar the festive spirit. "Crowd and congestion are part and parcel of Durga Puja. Impounding vehicles without providing them legitimate parking space is no solution," he echoed Sushant.
DSP (traffic) Vivekanand Thakur said they had had to seize more than 150 two-wheelers for unauthorised parking. "We kept Straight Mile Road free of bottlenecks. My men did their duty. Creating provisions for parking is the job of JNAC," he added.
Traffic police had carried out a similar drive near Kamani Centre in Bistupur on Saturday evening. More than 50 vehicles had been wheel-locked or towed away for violating parking rules.
