The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Processions play dampener

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Processions play dampener

Marri Ramu

Rallies as part of agitations, protests send traffic haywire

-Photo: Mohd. Yousuf

Causing chaos: Traffic moves at snail’s pace on the Lakdi-ka-pul - Saifabad road where dharnas are organised frequently.

HYDERABAD: Is causing inconvenience to people in the name of highlighting problems of people justified?

That was the question uppermost in the minds of thousands of commuters stranded on roads for hours together on Wednesday due to a procession organised by mass organisations of different left parties.

Life is paralysed every time a procession is taken out or a demonstration staged in the city, though the organisers claim it to be in the larger interest of the general public. Everybody, children returning home from schools, people going to offices, patients being taken to hospitals, passengers on the way to bus and railway stations and airports, is affected by the rallies.

“I can postpone my shopping due to traffic jam but I cannot bear my children getting stranded on road,” Raja Babu of Narayanadua remarks. Mr. Babu feels that, as drawing attention of Government to some injustice is important for protestors, so is protecting rights of patients to reach hospitals or children reaching home.

Businessman K. Pratap Reddy says people have right to demonstrate but feels that they can confine their agitations to their respective constituencies. “Those coming from districts can as well organise their agitation on city outskirts avoiding inconvenience to thousands of fellow citizens,” Mr. Reddy argues.

Organising rallies as part of agitation apart, processions taken out by politicians celebrating their entry into a party or receiving their national leaders also sent traffic haywire several times.

Lenient stand taken by the law-enforcers towards these protestors by not initiating serious action is indirectly encouraging the latter, avers Steven Jaideep, an advocate from Saidabad.

The organisers would be punished with some fine. Rarely the police invokes section 341 of Indian Penal Code (wrongful restraint) against persons responsible for holding up traffic by road blocking or processions. “If the police are really serious, let them tell people how many persons were imposed fine and convicted in such cases,” he argues. In January 2005, the then Police Commissioner V. Dinesh Reddy issued orders confining rallies to two trunk routes – Ramngar to Bagh Lingampally and Bagh Lingampally to Indira Park. No one knows present status of that order. Traffic Police Additional Commissioner V.S.K. Kaumudi says the idea of permitting demonstrations at Indira Park was not to choke central parts like Secretariat and Assembly.

Is it time to ban the processions in core areas? Should the police allow the protests which lead to traffic hold-ups? Should the venue of protests be shifted from Indira park? Email email your response to hydlife@thehindu.co.in or send them by post to The City Editor, The Hindu, Begumpet, Hyderabad – 16.

Responses of not more than 200 words should reach us by March 27, 2008.

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