Vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat at the Raj Bhavan after his arrival in the city on Friday. Picture by Biju Boro

May 28: Stifling security for vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat’s visit to the city has irked the local residents of Athgaon.

The Vice-President is scheduled to attend a function at the Assam Maheswari Bhawan in Athgaon tomorrow.

Local residents claimed that even patients and elderly people were not spared by gun-toting policemen on duty.

They demanded that harassment and inconvenience under the guise of VIP security to ordinary citizens should stop immediately.

“If women and patients are harassed, then one can imagine how ordinary men would be treated by the security forces,” alleged Gautam Jha, who runs a business in that area.

The patients and their relatives, bound for a maternity clinic at Athgaon, bore the brunt of the stringent security for the vice-president’s visit.

Rekha Khemka, an attendant of a patient admitted to the clinic, said she is not against providing security to VIPs but it should not cause harassment to the common people.

“The police and paramilitary forces have turned the area into a fortress in the name of conducting a mock drill. Vehicles are being forced to take a detour,” said M.K. Paul, a resident of Athgaon. A deputy inspector-general of police is in charge of the mock drill.

Paul said the police have been conducting mock drills in that area since Wednesday as a result of which movement of traffic on the busy Sati Jaymati Road have come to a standstill, inconveniencing patients on their way to the maternity clinic.

The residents said traffic went haywire especially yesterday when 15 cars with red lights and a few escort vehicles were used for the mock drill.

As the security drills continued for hours, none of the vehicles were allowed to ply on that stretch.

As a result, even women in advanced stages of pregnancy were forced to walk to the clinic.

On an average, 20 to 25 babies are born in the hospital every day while over 200 women visit the nursing home for pre and post-natal check-ups.

Even the neighbouring areas were badly hit.

“It is not that the residents of only Athgaon were affected. Since the Sati Jaymati Road was closed to traffic for hours, the people of Tokobari, Birubari, Machknowa and Kumarpara were also inconvenienced,” S.H. Ahmed, a resident of Machkhowa, said.

Moreover, businessmen were particularly annoyed at the scores of no-parking boards put up along the road.

Additional superintendent of police (city) Bibekananda Das said they have not received any complaints from the people so far.

He, however, insisted that security was arranged in such a manner that no inconvenience was caused to the common people.

The local residents said there is no use complaining to the police as it always fell on deaf ears and instead of taking action, the police would justify it in the name of VIP security.