Pune bandh hits normal life, 52 buses damaged

The Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sponsored Pune bandh disrupted normal life on Tuesday with most of the shops remaining shut for the entire day.

More than 50 buses of Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Ltd (PMPML) and a few private vehicles were damaged in stone-pelting incidents in various parts of the city. 

Though the movement of traffic was normal on city roads, it was disrupted on Pune-Mumbai Expressway for at least half an hour when agitators staged a sit-in at Kivale village around 11 am. The Dehu Road police reached the spot and detained several Sena-BJP activists.

The saffron alliance had given the bandh call to protest the removal of Dadoji Konddev’s statue from a composite sculpture in Lal Mahal.

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had surreptitiously removed the statue around 2.30 am on Monday.

Commissioner of police Meeran Borwankar said at least 45 buses were attacked during the bandh, out of which only 15 cases were reported to the police.

“Seven cognizable and non-cognizable offences have been registered at different police stations. The Sahakarnagar police arrested 22 people for rioting while three persons were booked in
Yerawada for forcibly closing a cellphone shop,” she said.

As a precautionary measure, the city police had detained around 375 people since Monday evening.

Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe, MP Gajanan Babar, Chandrakant Mokate, corporators Prithviraj Sutar, Anil Gaikwad, Seema Savle, Leena Pansare and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) corporators Ravindra Dhangekar and Kishore Shinde were detained on Tuesday.

Some unidentified persons came on motorcycles and stoned a PMPML bus in front of Nutan Marathi Vidyalaya. Around 35 passengers were travelling in the bus when the incident took place.

“The bus was proceeding to Shaniwarwada from Venutai College stop. The motorcyclists stopped their bikes and pelted stones at the windscreen. Two stones hit my right hand,” said the bus driver
Ulhas Saurpale.  

Borwankar said, “As soon as we noticed the strategy that bandh supporters were using bikes to pelt stones on buses we took the help of traffic police to keep a check on such hooligans.” In another incident, activists came in a car and attacked a bus in Pimpri.

PMPML’s public relation officer Deepak Pardeshi said 52 buses were damaged and three drivers and a conductor were injured in stone-pelting incidents. He said though the bus service was normal, the transport utility recorded 40% less passengers on Tuesday. He thanked the Pune police for providing protection to buses.

According to Pardeshi, the police had made adequate bandobast at bus stands. “There was a good presence of police at crowded bus stops. The police vans escorted our buses at several places,” he said, adding, miscreants had damaged two buses on Monday morning.

Borwankar said the police will seek legal opinion before filing cases against the agitators. “At present, we will register offences under relevant sections of the CrPC, contempt of court and damage to public property acts,” the police chief said.

Superintendent of police (Pune rural) Pratap Dighavkar said more then 50 people were detained for rioting.

Public relation officer of the Central Railway’s Pune division, Suhas Lohokare, said the agitators halted two trains — Indore-Pune and Pune-Mumbai Sinhagad Express — at Lonavala.