SC ruling on crackers draws blank in trouble zones

Panchanantala slum  and Haltu

Dwaipayan Ghosh, TNN, KOLKATA: This year, the cops had to devise new plans almost every hour to enforce the SC ruling for bursting crackers. Though they passed with flying colours in rest of the city, the men in uniform barely scraped through in certain trouble spots. TOI spoke to cops at two such pockets to ascertain what problems they faced as they went about implementing the SC verdict.

At Panchanantala slum, cops knew from the beginning that they had an uphill task at hand to stop the noise demons here. While the area is under Rabindra Sarobar police station, the Lake police, too, was asked to coordinate. Both police stations are located less than 500 metre from the slum area.

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Cops kept things in check till 7.15pm on Tuesday. As the clock stuck 8pm, the floodgates opened. The cops reacted immediately. An initial raid found no one but soon, six were detained. But it didn't act as a deterrent. As the night progresses, chocolate bombs took over. Police stations, the control room and even the NGOs were inundated with calls from local residents, asking for intervention. It was no different on Wednesday. However, the cops looked more organized and tried to stop the inflow of banned crackers.

Likewise, the Haltu area alone has contributed significantly to the noise pollution on the entire Kasba-Garfa-Golpark belt over the last 72 hours. The zone, with an average of 73.4 decibels on Tuesday, found itself to be among the top three noisiest spots on Wednesday as well.

"Several factors - the small alleys, the area being the boundary of two police stations and the mixed population of the area - made patrolling the area difficult. We set up several teams, but it was easy to burst a noisy Dodoma and slip to a smaller lane. Additionally, the noise demons frequently changed their zone of operation, tracking even more difficult. "It was difficult to pinpoint the exact spot where crackers were being burst," rued a cop.

The Garfa and Kasba police together carried out more than 15 arrests on Tuesday itself. "We can understand the limitations of the police but then they should have at least ensured that crackers did not go off well past midnight," said Srabanti Sinha, a local resident.