A rally by members of the BJP Yuva Morcha protesting chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s alleged snatching of files during Enforcement Directorate raids and a supposed attempt to stonewall a corruption probe brought traffic along Chowringhee and Esplanade to a halt on Friday afternoon.
Around 3pm, demonstrators burnt tyres in the middle of Chowringhee, with some climbing onto stranded buses waving posters and shouting slogans. Approximately 200 protesters blocked the road, chanting “chor, chor” at Trinamool Congress supporters on their way to join Mamata’s march from Jadavpur to Hazra.
The rally halted vehicles heading both towards Shyambazar and Park Street along Chowringhee’s northern and southern stretches. “This protest is against Mamata Banerjee and her party, and the manner in which she walked away with files during the ED raids on Thursday,” said Saumitra Khan, president of the BJP Yuva Morcha in Bengal.
“The police and state officers who aided the chief minister in taking the files should be arrested along with Mamata Banerjee,” he said at the protest site.
The police were forced to divert traffic through alternate routes and physically remove the protesters from the busy intersections.
“This was an unscheduled rally with no prior information. Traffic was restored after some time when the protesters were removed,” said a senior officer of Kolkata Police.
The events were captured on video by both the police and the demonstrators.
