Joka school stir over vehicle entry bar shuts down DH Road for 2 hrs
Times of India | 2 August 2024
Kolkata: Diamond Harbour Road — the key connector between Kolkata and South 24 Parganas — remained either completely shut or traffic crawled at times for around two hours on Thursday morning due to a protest staged by the parents of students of a central government school outside the IIM Joka Main Gate.
The flash protest threw peak morning hour traffic out of gear, leading to queues that were around a kilometre long.Traffic was affected despite the police diverting hundreds of vehicles through the much-longer Bakrahat-Amtala and Dakghar-Budge Budge-Amtala roads. Thakurpukur Traffic Guard sources said traffic stretched from Pailan 12C bus stand to Diamond City (closer to Thakurpukur 3A bus stand).
The parents of students of Kendriya Vidyalaya — which is located on the premises of IIM Joka — protested, claiming that they were stopped from dropping their wards to school beyond the main gate of IIM Joka despite heavy rain. The parents claimed that the decision was taken by the school and the IIM authorities. They demanded a rollback of the order.
“The IIM-C decision is absurd as the school is at a long distancefrom the gate. While we understand concerns of authorities on unregulated vehicular entry, it cannot result in a blanket ban,” said Ratna Sarkar, one of the protesters.
An IIM-C source said it was proposed that the parents could make passes for their legitimate vehicles at a nominal pay but auto rickshaws would not be allowed inside the residential campus at any cost because they drive recklessly. The parents claimed they never insisted on auto rickshaws entering the campus in the first place.
When contacted, DC (Behala) Rahul De said they were trying to thrash out a solution at the earliest that can provide relief to the students by speaking to the school as well as parents.
“A meeting will be convened at an earliest possible date,” he said.
Caught in this crossfire were hundreds of daily commuters, especially school children. “We had just dropped students but a few other school buses got caught in the protest. We walked close to the Joka canal and ensured we brought the children to school forming lines. Students from nursery to class II had to walk 300 to 500 metres to reach school,” said Soma Roy, an attendant of a school bus of Vivekananda Mission School.
Anindya Sengupta, a resident of a complex near Pailan, said he reached his Dalhousie office late by over an hour. With buses getting caught in the jam, commuters suffered in Behala too.