Pro-industry chants resonated across the city —from Sector V to the Metro channel — on Wednesday and people from all walks of life joined in.

Leading the pro-industry pitch were representatives of the IT sector, who brought out two silent marches in the Salt Lake Electronics Complex (Saltlec).

Besides demanding immediate resolution of the Singur impasse, the techies protested against the treatment meted out to their colleagues by Mamata Banerjee and her men.

“Three of our representatives went to Singur to discuss the issue with the Trinamul leader. When we learnt that they were humiliated, we could no longer sit in office,” said an employee of Cognizant Technological Services (CTS) who took part in both rallies.

The first march, joined by more than 500 people, started from the Infinity building at 1.30pm. The techies, faces covered with strips of black cloth, marched till the Technopolis building.

The second rally started around 6pm and followed the same route.

Employees of several IT companies, including CTS, Tata Consultancy Services, The Chatterjee Group, IBM and Capgemini, took part in both marches.

“There might have been some people in the march who support the Left. But I know a lot of people who joined the rally spontaneously,” said a TCS employee.

The techies held aloft posters with slogans like “Yes to Tata, Yes to Nano” written on them. Many of them stopped for a while to scribble messages, such as “We want industrialisation” and “We need jobs”, on the flexes put up outside the Infinity building.

Trinamul leaders, however, dubbed the Sector V protests a motivated campaign. “We will organise a signature campaign in favour of industry and agriculture in Sector V on Friday and counter the misinformation campaign,” Trinamul Congress MLA Sovandeb Chattopadhyaya told Metro.

The protest against the Mamata brigade was not limited to tech town, as over 2,000 members of the Forum of Engineering Teachers and Students took out a rally from the Gandhi statue at Esplanade at 1pm and then gathered in front of Metro cinema.

“If the Tatas leave, no other company will invest in our state. We will lose out on job opportunities. We want the issue to be resolved soon,” said Russel Aziz, a third-year IT student of Bengal Engineering and Science University.

The participants included students and teachers of the Institute of Engineering and Management, Jadavpur University, and Netaji Subhash Engineering College.

The members of the forum also handed over a letter to the Tata authorities at Tata Centre, requesting them not to abandon the Singur project.

At 4pm, members of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (a CPM wing) and Ei Shomoy, including poet Subodh Sarkar, film director Tarun Mazumdar, litterateurs Mandakranta Sen and Biplab Sengupta, held a rally in the Metro channel protesting against Mamata’s Singur siege.